“It amazes me that you can transplant somebody else’s eye”

Can you describe working as a hospital optometrist in one sentence? 

Exciting, rewarding, and fast-paced. 

I moved to Leicester when I got married. I was working for the AOP, and I left my other job because it was too far for me to commute. I was looking at all the different options available to me, including working in practice and domiciliary.

This role happened by chance. My sister lives in Leicestershire, and Stoneygate Eye Hospital is quite near her house, so I’d always seen it. They advertised a job for an ophthalmic technician, not an optometrist. At that time, I was sending my CV out to lots of different places looking for a part-time role. I contacted the hospital, and they told me they were not looking for an optometrist at that moment, but invited me to look around, sit in with their optometrists, and observe in theatre.  

I went to the hospital, got chatting with everyone, and just loved it. From the second that I stepped in, everyone was so friendly. I sat in with an optometrist and saw the work that he did, treating patients after surgery. It was really rewarding work.  

That was in September 2023. A few months later, I got a call asking if I wanted to do some evening clinics as an ophthalmic technician, carrying out optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans on patients. They said that if an optometry role became available in the future, I’d be first choice.  

That role didn’t happen, because I got another phone call two weeks later to say that an optometrist was leaving. They offered the role to me, and I’ve never looked back. It was the best decision. I love it. It’s so rewarding.  

I’m learning so much about different medications. I’ve worked very closely with the corneal consultant and learned so much about cornea transplant. I’ve seen so much more pathology than I’ve ever seen before, in the 10 years that I’ve been qualified.  

I’ve seen so much more pathology than I’ve ever seen before, in the 10 years that I’ve been qualified

Do you do any work or volunteering alongside hospital optometry? 

I work for the AOP as a clinical and regulatory adviser, and for Glaucoma UK as a readers’ panel volunteer, reading and making amendments to their leaflets. Also, I examine mock objective structured clinical assessments for Optom Academy.  

What is the biggest challenge facing hospital optometry currently, and how can the profession support in solving that issue? 

The huge backlogs are the biggest challenge. There are so many patients that need appointments, and there are not enough staff. There’s not enough funding; there are not enough people. If more optometrists were able to do higher qualifications, or if there was more funding for optometrists to do these higher qualifications, a lot of the care could be outsourced to community optometry, which would shorten the waiting list and take off the load from the hospital. Then, patients who need to be seen in the hospital could be seen more promptly. 

Glaucoma is an example. Glaucoma is an eye condition that doesn’t necessarily have symptoms. These symptoms can be invisible, and people are literally losing their sight because their appointments are not on time.  

My mother-in-law is an example. I’ve been fighting to get her an appointment at the hospital. She was supposed to be seen in June last year, and it has been cancelled five times. I have got really angry. I’m an optometrist, and I know she’s got quite a significant problem in her eye. I think that that is the biggest challenge: too many patients needing to be seen, and not enough appointments. 

What is hospital optometry’s biggest success in the past three years? 

Hospital optometry allows more and more optometrists to take on advanced roles. Now, optometrists are able to perform techniques such as YAG laser, and selective laser trabeculoplasty for glaucoma. We’re perfectly qualified and able to learn and do these extended roles.  

Allowing optometrists to do this is going to be a game-changer. More optometrists taking on these roles will take the pressure off ophthalmologists. There are more and more companies that are allowing optometrists to take on these extended roles, as well as core NHS hospitals. I think that’s massively successful, and a step in the right direction. 

What was your biggest success of the past three years, and why? 

Getting this job in the hospital in the first place, and then challenging myself every day to push myself further and learn about new eye conditions and pathologies that I haven't seen before. 

I could have worked in other roles, which I wouldn’t have been completely happy in. But this job at the hospital is so rewarding, and it challenges me on a daily basis. 

I like to push myself, and I’m quite ambitious. Sometimes I see pathology and I don’t know what it is, and I have to then go and learn about it. I feel proud of myself for doing that.  

What is the most surprising case that you’ve seen in the hospital so far? 

I had a young patient, in his 20s, who had had laser corrective eye surgery. Everything was fine following the procedure. I’d been following him up for a couple of months, and then all of a sudden he developed post-operative corneal ectasia.  

That’s a condition where your cornea can start to change afterwards. It’s sometimes a side effect of laser surgery. We couldn't understand why. Still to this day, that baffles me. It looked like a snowflake on the patient’s eye. It’s quite unusual, and I hadn’t seen it before.  

I see a lot of corneal transplants as well. It amazes me that you can transplant somebody else’s eye. We get the documents to say whose tissue has been donated to this patient, and we can see how old they were, how they passed away, and where the tissues come from. That amazes me completely. 

What would you say to optometrists who are currently working on the High Street about working in a hospital environment? 

Just go for it. Challenge yourself, put yourself out there, and go and get it. It’s not scary. You might need to read up a bit on your pathology, but working in hospital is really rewarding. There’s so much scope for extending your role and having a bit of variety in your day.  

Working in High Street optometry, whilst it’s great, especially when you’re first starting out in your career, can get quite monotonous very quickly. If you really want to have variety, hospital optometry is for you.