Autobiography
About Prof. Dr. Mandira Shahi
From a nursing classroom in Nepalgunj to Nepal's Medical Education Commission. My life, in my own words.
Prof. Dr. Mandira Shahi
Medical Educationist · Professor of Nursing
I am Mandira Shahi. I teach the people who teach Nepal's health workers. That has meant a professorship in Nursing at the Institute of Medicine, Tribhuvan University, a term as Executive Director of the National Centre for Health Professions Education (NCHPE), and, since 2026, a seat on Nepal's Medical Education Commission after nomination by the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister Balendra Shah. Over more than four decades I have worked with physicians, nurses, dentists, Ayurveda practitioners and public health professionals in every province of the country.
It started in 1980, in Nepalgunj, where I was an Assistant Instructor at the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife Campus preparing midwives for the western plains. From there I moved to Pokhara Nursing Campus, then to clinical service at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, and in 1997 to the National Centre for Health Professions Education in Maharajgunj, where I went from Lecturer to Associate Professor, Professor and finally Executive Director. Along the way I took a Master of Health Professions Education at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, an M.Phil, and a PhD on the application of distance education in Nepal.
Some of that work has stayed with me more than the rest. Sixty-one batches of the “Helping Students Learn” faculty development training. Bringing problem-based learning, simulation-based education and OSCE/OSPE assessment into Nepalese classrooms. Curriculum development from certificate nursing all the way to MD/MS and Master of Dental Surgery. And the communication-skills teaching, which I think has quietly changed how our clinicians speak with their patients. My research on medical education, nursing curricula, distance learning and public health has been published in national and international peer-reviewed journals, and presented in Canada, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India and Finland.
Tribhuvan University gave me the Dhirgha Sewa Padak for twenty-five years of continuous service. I have visited seventeen countries and speak four languages. Retirement has not stopped me: I still travel across Nepal as a resource person, because the next generation of health professions educators needs the same confidence and competence that someone once helped me build.
Career
A Journey Through Five Decades
The milestones along the way, from Nepalgunj to the Medical Education Commission.
Member, Medical Education Commission of Nepal
Nominated by the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister Balendra Shah
In May 2026 the Prime Minister nominated me to the national Medical Education Commission, after nearly five decades of work in Nepalese health professions education. The Commission sets policy, quality assurance and accreditation for all medical, nursing, Ayurveda and allied health education in the country, so I now help decide how our future clinicians are trained.
Professor Emerita Years: National Resource Person & Editorial Board Member
Universities, medical colleges and journals across Nepal
Retiring from Tribhuvan University in May 2020 did not slow my work at all. I sit on the National Editorial Board of the Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences, and I am still called on regularly as a facilitator: faculty development training, OSCE/OSPE assessment workshops, communication-skills courses and curriculum development for Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences, Karnali Academy of Health Sciences, Madhesh Institute of Health, Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences, Janaki Medical College, Gandaki Medical College and many others.
Executive Director
National Centre for Health Professions Education (NCHPE), TU Institute of Medicine
NCHPE is where Nepal trains the trainers of its doctors, nurses and allied health professionals, and as Executive Director I led faculty development policy and delivery for the whole country. The Centre ran our flagship “Helping Students Learn” teacher training (61 batches across my career), workshops on problem-based learning, simulation-based education and clinical assessment, and study programmes for visiting WHO fellows. I had already served as Acting Executive Director several times before the full appointment.
Member, Academic Council
Karnali Academy of Health Sciences, Jumla
On the Academic Council at Jumla I helped set academic standards for one of the most remote and underserved parts of Nepal. This work mattered to me because it carried good health professions education past the Kathmandu valley and into the mountains of Karnali Province.
Professor of Nursing & Medical Education
Tribhuvan University, Institute of Medicine
Promotion to full Professor came after three decades of teaching. By then I was teaching educational science right across the spectrum: B.Sc. Nursing, Bachelor of Nursing Science, Master of Nursing, Bachelor and Master of Public Health, MBBS and MD/MS. I also supervised a generation of master's research, on subjects ranging from occupational health to the psychosocial problems of child labourers.
Coordinator, Clinical Elective Programme for Foreign Medical & Nursing Students
TU Institute of Medicine, NCHPE
For fifteen years I welcomed international medical and nursing students to Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital and coordinated their clinical electives from arrival to departure. The programme received formal appreciation from Work the World, and it led to published research on how foreign students experience an elective in Nepal.
Associate Professor
Tribhuvan University, Institute of Medicine
As Associate Professor I balanced classroom teaching with national curriculum work: coordinating the BNS curriculum review, building the MHPE course at TU IOM, and facilitating revisions of the MD/DM curricula in general practice, emergency medicine, dermatology and gynaecology & obstetrics.
Lecturer, National Centre for Health Professions Education
TU Institute of Medicine, Maharajgunj
Joining NCHPE was the turning point in my career, from clinical nursing instructor to medical educationist. From 1997 onward I facilitated WHO-supported training courses for health profession trainers, problem-based learning implementation workshops for the MBBS programme, and curriculum development for the new Bachelor of Dental Surgery. Everything that followed grew out of those years.
Faculty & Field Coordinator, Pokhara Nursing Campus
Tribhuvan University, Institute of Medicine
In Pokhara I taught certificate-level nursing, coordinated the community field programmes and served as hostel warden, alongside elected roles as Secretary of the Nursing Association of Nepal (Pokhara) and of the Nepal Teachers' Association. A 1994 study tour on teaching primary health care in the United Kingdom gave my own teaching a wider frame of reference.
Assistant Instructor to Deputy Instructor
Nepalgunj A.N.M. Campus & T.U. Teaching Hospital
I started in 1980 at the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife Campus in Nepalgunj, training the frontline midwives of Nepal's Mid- and Far-Western regions. Over that decade I moved from Assistant Instructor to Deputy Instructor and Field Coordinator, with clinical service at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. I learned health education where it actually happens: in classrooms, hostels, wards and village health posts.
Education
Academic Qualifications
PhD in Education
2021“Application of Distance Education in Nepal”. Singhania University, Rajasthan, India
M.Phil in Education
2010“Distance Education: an Effective Technology for Continuous Nursing Education in the Nepalese Context”. The Global Open University, Nagaland, India
Master of Health Professions Education (MHPE)
2001Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Bachelor's Degree in Community Health Nursing
1988Institute of Medicine, Tribhuvan University, Nepal
Diploma in Public Administration
1985Nepal
Proficiency Certificate in Nursing
1979Institute of Medicine, Tribhuvan University, Nepal
Leadership
Service to the Profession
Committees, councils and associations I have been trusted to serve.
Chairperson, Subject Committee of Nursing Education, Management & Research
TU Institute of Medicine · two three-year terms (2011 & 2017)
Member, Faculty Board (Bidhyaparishad)
TU Institute of Medicine · two terms (2012 & 2018)
Member Secretary, Curriculum Development & Evaluation Committee
NCHPE, TU Institute of Medicine
National Editorial Board Member
Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences (EJMS), since 2020
President, HASTI Nepal · Vice President, HASTI-AIDS
Three decades of volunteer leadership against STIs and HIV/AIDS
Treasurer, AHPEN & Executive Member, ABAN
Association of Health Professions Educationists of Nepal · Association of British Alumni in Nepal
Expertise
Training & Facilitation
The workshops and subjects I have designed, taught and argued for across Nepal.
Global Footprint
International Engagement
Seventeen countries visited; research presented and training taken on three continents.
I gave oral and poster presentations at the 2nd International Conference on Diabetes and Diabetic Nurse Education in Montreal, Canada. My talk on obesity among Nepalese women received a Certificate of Achievement, which the organisers called “phenomenal and worthy”.
I presented a paper and poster at the 3rd SEARAME Conference of the South East Asian Regional Association for Medical Education, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
I completed the Global Health Course at the University of Tampere and the Finnish Medical Society Duodecim in Finland (8 ECTS), then went on to facilitate the same course in Nepal three times.
I was a delegate and presenter at the SEARAME & Indian National Conference on Health Professions Education, PSG Institute of Medical Sciences, Coimbatore, India.
I presented a paper on nurses' awareness of distance education at the International Conference on Nursing (ICON), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
I trained in Dhaka, Bangladesh as an International Master Trainer for the WHO Essential Newborn Care Course, and then ran the national trainings in Kathmandu several times over.
Curriculum Vitae
The complete academic CV: education, appointments, research, trainings, awards and professional service.