Mangaluru: The Postal Department will release a special cover on Late Prof Mangalore Pandurang Pai for his birth centenary, at the head post office.

According to the birth centennial special cover proponent, Dr G G Laxman Prabhu, professor and head of Urology Department at KMC, Prof M P Pai, a surgeon, scholar, philosopher, nationalist and a legendary teacher, was God’s gift to Mangaluru. Without his efforts, the Kasturba Medical College, the institution he served longest, could not have prided itself of the first-ever PG course in the state, in General Surgery. Over 500 surgeons have successfully completed the course started in 1963.

Born on April 10, 1919, Professor Pai had his early education at the Canara High School and the Government College (now University College). He received his medical education in Madras at Stanley Medical College and Madras Medical College. He went to England in 1952 for FRCS.

On return, he set himself up in private practice at Coimbatore, which he gave up for love of teaching. This took him to Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh, and then to Victoria College in Bengaluru for a while.

In 1959, he arrived in Mangaluru to join the Kasturba Medical College, which was six years old and the first private medical college in the country. He worked for 18 years in the institution and established the first-ever PG medical department in the erstwhile Mysore state and retired in 1977 as its principal.