Dr Jagadish Agrawal, the newly appointed dean of the Institute of Medicine, is a neurologist at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH).

Dr Govinda KC has long been demanding that Dr Agrawal be appointed the dean of the IoM on the basis of seniority.

He was appointed on Saturday a day after Dr KP Singh resigned as the IoM dean.

Dr Agrawal, a professor of internal medicine, was serving as the executive director of the National Centre for Health Professions Education (NCHPE) at the IoM before his appointment as the IoM dean on Saturday.

An MD in general medicine from India, Dr Agrawal holds a master’s degree in Health Profession Education from the Netherlands.

He was promoted to the post of professor at the IoM in February 2003.

He works only at the TUTH.

Like Dr KC, Dr Agrawal also has long been voicing for making medical schools accountable.

He is among the fewer voices in the country that have been questioning the quality of doctors being produced by medical colleges inside and outside the country and lobbied for a stronger regulatory mechanism in mid-2000s.

As the new dean of the IoM, Dr Agrawal faces the challenge of fixing the anomalies against which he has been voicing for long.

Streamlining the affiliation process to medical colleges could be one of the first and foremost challenges that Dr Agrawal has to deal with. Dr Agrawal is known for his clean image. His name has never been dragged into any kind of controversies—within and outside the IoM.