A champion for nursing
Highlights
- Reeya Shakya is a Nepalese-born nurse who moved to Australia to further her nursing education, completing a Bachelor of Nursing at ACU in 2021.
- She combines teaching in a nursing diploma program with clinical roles in anaesthetics, aged care and home care, while studying a Master of Health Professional Education at ACU.
- Reeya was a nursing student in Kathmandu during the 2015 Nepal earthquake, which destroyed buildings around her home.
At 16, Reeya Shakya was in Kathmandu sitting a series of exams to get into nursing school. At the time her subject of choice wasn’t nursing at all – it was biomedical engineering. But her mother wanted her to follow in her auntie’s footsteps and become a nurse.
So, Reeya showed up to take the tests.
“I went, but I didn’t want to answer the questions correctly,” she recalls. “I knew that if I gave the wrong answers, I wouldn’t be selected, and maybe I could get what I wanted.”
Her plan worked, and she got into biomedical engineering, entering the science faculty.
“But after going there, I didn’t feel that kind of happiness,” she says. “So I thought, okay, I will give nursing a go.”
By the time she entered her nursing course, it was two months into the academic year. Reeya had to play catch-up. First, the anatomy and physiology units sparked her interest. Then came her first clinical placement.
“After the first patient, I felt a different kind of happiness. I felt like, okay, this is it. I’m doing nursing. Let’s see how far I can go.”
More than a decade on, having moved to Australia, Reeya has completed a Bachelor of Nursing at ACU and is currently enrolled in a Master of Health Professional Education.
She is also a teacher and program manager in a diploma course with a registered training organisation, and works in various clinical roles: as an anaesthetic nurse in hospital, an after-hours nurse in aged care, and a clinical consultant in home care.
Her teenage reluctance toward nursing is now a minor kink in her career path.
“Between today and that day, there is a big difference,” she says. “If not nursing, I don’t know what I would be doing.”
Kathmandu, 2015
Back in Nepal, Reeya was two years into her nursing course when the earthquake came.
She was at home, in a multi-storey building with no lift. When the shaking started, a door slammed on her hand, fracturing a finger and damaging the nail bed.
Blood ran from her hand as she tried to help her younger sister, who was stuck on a couch that wouldn’t stop moving.
When they made it to the street, the scene was confronting.
“I saw that the buildings had already come down, and one of my neighbour’s buildings was completely smashed,” she says.
“We came to know that people were dead inside and they weren’t able to retrieve the bodies because it was dangerous. People were crying on the road, it was all falling down around and people were crying.”
Reeya felt like she was in a movie scene.
“We thought it was like the end of the world.”
In the aftermath, she and her family slept outside for a month, and proper meals were scarce. Even so, she sees herself as lucky.
“This is my story,” she says, “but definitely there will be so many stories out there, and they might have lost their loved ones.”
While devastating, the Nepal earthquake of 2015 was not Reeya’s reason for deciding to come to Australia.
The following year, having sat her final exams and gained a qualification as a registered nurse, Reeya encountered the system that greets new nurses in Nepal. She decided she needed more.
“I purposely chose to come to Australia to upgrade myself in nursing education,” she says, “so that I can do better in that field and bring positive change.”
Continuous learning
When Reeya arrived in Sydney, she started with a tertiary preparation program, which gave her a chance to learn about the education system and settle into a new country.
Her Nepalese qualification earned her some credit points at ACU, while also helping her to land a job as a technical assistant in the university’s simulation labs.
“One strength I had at that time is that I already had a nursing degree from back home, so I knew the equipment,” says Reeya, who worked in the labs from 2018 until finishing her degree in 2021.
This allowed her to play a role in giving fellow students exposure to real-life scenarios – administering simulated medications, sewing and removing sutures on practice pads, practicing and upgrading skills.
It also gave Reeya a view into nursing education, a passion that continues to evolve.
“Being involved in nursing education gives you a chance to see how nursing is changing,” says Reeya, who is currently juggling her teaching role with study and clinical work.
She keeps a hand in both teaching and practice because they complement each other.
“What nursing was like 20 years ago is not what it’s like today, so I think it’s important to have continuous professional development,” she says.
“I deliberately do these things because I need to know what industry is running into, and I can bring that into the education sector. And on the education side, it keeps you aware and up to date with new methods. That’s why I like to keep so engaged.”
A champion for the profession
In hospital, Reeya regularly works alongside an anaesthetist, and is often the last person a patient speaks to before they go under.
This is where her combination of clinical skills and compassion come into play.
“To have an operation is not a small thing,” she says. “That little reassurance, that little touch helps. Giving the warm blanket or just understanding or listening to them, how they are feeling, what are their worries, answering their questions. That extra touch always helps.”
She urges pre-service nurses to explore the many different aspects of the field, to help them find their niche.
“Nursing is such a diverse and rewarding profession, and there are so many different things that you can do,” she says.
“If one door closes and you don't like that perspective of nursing, there's so many things that you can explore and do, and many people aren’t aware of these opportunities.”
To Reeya, nursing is not a matter of “I’ve achieved something and now I'm satisfied”. It’s a lifelong education.
“I want to keep improving and learning,” she says. “I want to grow, and I want to pass this on to others.”
Having completed a Graduate Certificate in Leadership and Management in Healthcare at ACU, Reeya started her master’s degree in early 2026, taking the research stream with a view to a possible PhD.
She chose a Master of Health Professional Education to pursue her love of teaching.
“This is where I get the real happiness, by teaching someone,” she says. “Sharing knowledge with others is very rewarding, it upgrades your knowledge as well.”
Reeya goes back to Nepal whenever she can, visiting her parents and sister, while she and her brother live in Sydney. She sees both her birthplace and her adopted country as home.
I belong to Nepal, but I am what I am today because of Australia,” Reeya says. “I love and respect both countries equally, and I feel very lucky for that.”
Published 2026