Associate Professor Charles Pilgrim first graduated from Monash University in 2000 before entering his surgical training at The Alfred in Melbourne. In 2007 he gained his fellowship in General Surgery, and in 2008 was appointed the Upper Gastrointestinal fellow at The Alfred.

A/Prof Pilgrim commenced his PhD at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in 2009 through the University of Melbourne, which he completed in 2012 to advance the field of research into liver damage caused by chemotherapy. He then went on to the USA to complete a second fellowship as the Surgical Oncology fellow in HPB (Hepatopancreaticobiliary) Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Centre.

Now A/Prof Pilgrim offers general and minimally invasive upper gastrointestinal surgery, hernia repair and treatment, specialist surgery for cancer and other disorders of the pancreas, liver, stomach, gallbladder and bile duct, as well as offering bariatric surgery in Melbourne. He works with the Victorian HPB Surgery group at Cabrini Medical Centre Malvern and Peninsula Private Consulting Suites Frankston. A/Prof Pilgrim has appointments with the Hepatopancreaticobiliary unit at The Alfred, the Trauma Surgery Service at The Alfred and in General and Emergency Surgery at Frankston Hospital.

A/Prof Pilgrim is an international Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and is a member of the International HPB Association (IHPBA), the Americas HPB association (AHPBA), the Australian & New Zealand HPB association (ANZHPBA), the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) and is on the Scientific Advisory Committee Upper GI Working party of Australasian Gastrointestinal Trials group (AGITG). He is a member of both the ANZ Gastrooesophageal Surgery Association (ANZGOSA) and the ANZ Metabolic and Obesity Surgery Society (ANZMOSS). He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO), the Australian Military Medicine Association (AMMA), Australasian Pancreatic Club, American Pancreas Association (APA) the International Association of Pancreatology (IAP) and is a committee member of the Section of Military Surgery with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He is accredited by GESA to perform gastroscopy and colonoscopy. He is on the medical advisory board for PANCARE, the pancreas cancer consumer group.
 
A/Prof Pilgrim has been published extensively in many peer reviewed medical journals such as the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, Annals of Surgery, the British Journal of Surgery, the Australia and New Zealand Journal of Surgery, the Journal of the American Medical Association and the journal HPB, on topics such as liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, gallbladder cancer as well as laparoscopic and trauma surgery.

A/Prof Charles Pilgrim is a serving military surgeon with the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan to serve in 2010 and to Iraq in 2016. He is a member of the Academy of Surgical Educators with the College of Surgeons and an adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, School of Translational Medicine (Monash University) at The Alfred. He is Senior Trauma instructor for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the International Association for Trauma Surgery and Intensive Care (IATSIC).