Colonel Sudhansu Sobhan Maitra
(Padma Bhushan, 1962)

Colonel Sudhansu Sobhan Maitra was an Indian physician and army doctor who rose to one of the most distinguished medical positions in the country — Surgeon to the President of India.

He was a graduate of Patna University. During the Second World War he served in the Indian Army Medical Corps and was awarded the War Medal in 1944 for his service. After the war he continued in military medicine and later joined the faculty of Willingdon Hospital in New Delhi (now Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital).

His skill, quiet competence and steady temperament earned him the rare responsibility of looking after the health of the President of India. In that role, as Colonel, he served as the personal surgeon to the highest office of the Republic.

In recognition of his distinguished service to medicine, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan in 1962. Two years later, in 1964, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh elected him a Fellow.

He remains one of the quieter figures among the early Padma Bhushan doctors — a World War II veteran who went on to stand beside the President of independent India, carrying both the discipline of the army and the responsibility of the nation’s highest medical trust with the same calm hands.