In the hills of Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, in the village of Mazra near Indora, Sandeep Guleria was born into a family of healers. His father, Dr. Jagdev Singh Guleria, a distinguished physician and former Dean of AIIMS, and his elder brother Randeep would both later receive the Padma Shri. Young Sandeep grew up watching medicine as a way of life and service.

He completed his MBBS from University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi, followed by MS in General Surgery and DNB from AIIMS, New Delhi. Further training in the United Kingdom led to fellowships from the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh, England and Glasgow. He served as a consultant surgeon in transplantation at St. James’s University Hospital in Leeds, one of Europe’s largest teaching hospitals, before returning to India.

At AIIMS he rose to become Professor of Surgery. He pioneered cadaveric renal transplantation in New Delhi, led the teams that performed India’s first two successful combined kidney-pancreas transplants, established the paediatric transplant unit and the laparoscopic donor nephrectomy programme, and introduced the “Donor Card” initiative to promote organ donation. He has performed well over two thousand kidney transplants and mentored transplant programmes across India and even in Nepal, where he helped set up the first successful renal transplant service at Bir Hospital in Kathmandu.

One evening after a complex transplant, a young resident asked him, “Sir, how do you stay calm when so many lives depend on your hands?”

Sandeep Guleria replied quietly, “Every organ we transplant is a second chance given by one human being to another. Our duty is simply to honour that gift with the best skill and the greatest care we can give.”

In 2019 the President of India conferred upon him the Padma Shri for his distinguished contributions to surgery and transplantation. Today he continues as Senior Consultant in Renal Transplant Surgery at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi, while remaining closely associated with AIIMS, training the next generation of transplant surgeons.

From a village boy in the Kangra hills to one of India’s foremost transplant surgeons who brought new hope to thousands of patients with end-stage organ failure, Dr. Sandeep Guleria’s journey remains a luminous story of precision, pioneering spirit and profound compassion.