Professor Mtshali’s professional and academic experience includes serving the Department of Health in both urban and rural hospitals, appointment as lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where she served in a number of positions at school

and faculty levels before moving to the South African Nursing Council as a Senior Manager: Education and Training. She then rejoined the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Having specialized in Progressive Education for Health Professional Education, Professor Mtshali interests lies in innovative teaching, learning and assessment of learning strategies, curriculum development and evaluation of educational programmes.

Her research area is in socially responsive health professionals’ education, with the main focus on community-based education. She is pursuing this area further to explore education for social justice. Her other research is on student support and clinical education. Most of this work has been published in the form of journal articles and chapters in books which are used as reference material by a number of nursing and midwifery institutions locally and internationally.

Being part of the School of Nursing and Public Health where the discipline of Nursing is recognized as a World Health Organization Collaborating Center in the African Region, Professor Mtshali has been invited to serve as a consultant in developing nursing and midwifery human resources by bodies such as World Health Organization, USAID and Commonwealth. The consultancy work has exposed her to a number of countries such as Rwanda, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Eritrea, Mali, Seychelles, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo (Brazzaville and Lubumbashi), Zanzibar and Zimbabwe.

Professor Mtshali was awarded a Southern Africa-FAIMER Regional Institute fellowship (SAFRI) which contributed significantly in preparing her as a leader in education and research.

She has supervised successfully a number of postgraduate students including Masters and PhD students.