"Thank you very much for my surgery Dr Minz. I am proud India has a surgeon of your eminence in kidney transplant surgery."

The tweet lauding the expertise of Dr Mukut Minz was posted on December 16 by Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, who had a successful kidney transplant at AIIMS, Delhi. Dr Minz had led the medical team.

Dr Minz, who was awarded Padma Shri this year, was on Wednesday jointly felicitated by Ranchi Civil Society, XISS and St Xavier's College at the latter's campus.

After retiring as head of the department of renal transplant surgery at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh in July last year, Dr Minz joined Fortis Hospital in Mohali as a director.

He revealed his keenness to extend help in setting up a kidney transplant unit in Jharkhand. "I will surely do my bit if the state government shows its willingness to set up such a unit," he told reporters at XISS earlier on Wednesday.

On the paucity of kidneys for transplant, Minz said, "Increased awareness (about organ donation) will help."

Born in a nondescript village of Goibhanga in Odisha's Sundargarh in 1951, Dr Minz had served for a year as a resident medical officer at Catholic Mission Hospital at Kolunga near his village. He worked as a junior resident at JIPMER in Pondicherry for a year after graduating in medicine from VSS Medical College in Sambalpur in 1975.

After moving to PGIMER, Chandigarh in 1980, he did his masters in general surgery in 1982 and served the institute as a senior resident and a faculty member before becoming a member of the governing body.

Dr Minz received advanced training in organ transplantation in Norway, Germany and the US.