Abul Khair Shamsuddin Ahmed was an eminent physician in Bangladesh and a former vice president of the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was born in Tangail, in the Mymensingh district, the son of Abul Mozaffar Ahmed, a judge. His mother was Rabia Khatum Ahmed. He attended Armenitola Government High School in Dhaka, and then went on to Calcutta University, where he studied medicine. He graduated in 1936, winning a prize in clinical medicine.

He completed house jobs at Dhaka Medical College and by 1942 was a resident physician there. In 1944 he was appointed as a teacher of medicine at Lytton Medical School, later becoming a professor of pharmacology there and, in 1953, a professor of clinical medicine.

From 1957 he was a professor of medicine at Dhaka Medical College. He was dean of the faculty of medicine at Dhaka University from 1963. In 1964 he was appointed as a professor of medicine and cardiology at Sir Sallimullah Medical College. A year later he became professor of medicine and cardiology at the Institute of Postgraduate Medicine.

He wrote papers on a variety of topics, including circulation, catheterization of the heart, the aorta and heart disease.

At the time of his election to the Fellowship of the College in 1967 he listed his hobbies and interests as photography, tennis, research work and reading journals. He married Tanzihenneisa, the daughter of a senior deputy magistrate, in 1943 and they had two sons and three daughters.

RCP editor