Dr (Maj Gen) Atul K Sharma, AVSM did his MBBS and MS in General Surgery, from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune and was awarded the Diplomate of the National Board (DNB) in 1983. He did a two year Post-doctoral Fellowship in Gastro-intestinal Surgery 1994- 96 at the Department of Gastro-intestinal Surgery & Liver Transplantation, AIIMS, New Delhi and was a visiting scholar at the Dumont-UCLA Liver & Pancreas Transplant Centre, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
He established the Advanced Laparoscopy Service at the Dept. of GI Surgery, Army Hospital (R& R), Delhi, and has mentored a number of GI Surgeons in techniques of minimal access surgery in various Command Hospitals of the Armed Forces Medical Services. He has perfected both the conventional and laparoscopic operations for Gallstones, oesophageal, gastric, hepato-biliary and colon-rectal cancers.
He was the first surgeon to perform Bariatric (weight-loss) Surgery in the Armed Forces and has a large number of very satisfied and grateful patients on follow-up. A popular teacher with experience of over 17 years, he was formerly Professor of Surgery at AFMC and Dean of Army College of Medical Sciences. He is examiner for M.Ch - G I Surgery at AIIMS. For his more than 37 years of meritorious and dedicated service to the nation, he was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) by the President of India on 26 January 2014. He retired from the Armed Forces in September 2014.