Shadowing Opportunities

The Cross Innovation Hub is facilitating shadowing opportunities between Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. The aim is to open up our working worlds, enabling participants to share an enlightening view into each other's work.


With shadowing you will gain insight into different professional roles and learn from the experiences of colleagues. You can strengthen and build networks of contacts for future projects.


Shadowing is a way of gaining insight and experience. Different ways of working and protocols exist in each workspace, clinic or lab. It is beneficial for all staff to understand the advantages and limitations of other workplaces, as well as their own.


To facilitate a shadowing opportunity, we will require the following information; your name, current role, supervisor’s name and your lab or clinic. We would also like to know which specialty/s or clinic you would like to shadow, or if there is a specific member of staff. We will contact the relevant departments to start the process . You may be contacted to supply a current CV.


If you are successful in gaining a shadowing opportunity within a Moorfields clinic/theatre you will be required to submit passport verification and supervisor’s name.


It is important to note there is no guarantee shadowing at Moorfields Eye Hospital will occur within a set time frame; in fact, it may be at short notice as and when session/s become available. Clinics and theatres have split morning and afternoon sessions, not necessarily the same specialty, so a chosen specialty would probably be hosted on different days. This also applies to Moorfields satellite sites


As an initial step, please input your details below and you will be contacted.

On a shadowing day the varied tasks that each person undertakes as part of their daily work is observed. Even a few hours of a researcher coming into the clinics to meet with real patients can help them to understand the 'why' of what they are doing in the work they do. This experience can allow them to apply this knowledge to their research and any future research questions.


Read about Armans' experience:

"As a researcher specialising in ophthalmic imaging, I witnessed first-hand the challenges involved with obtaining biomedical images of sufficient quality. The images I work with are often ideal and not representative of what the typical clinician sees. Because of this clinical exposure, I was inspired to brainstorm multi-faceted solutions that consider the desires of the clinician, the capabilities of the engineer, and the needs of the patient. Such interdisciplinary opportunities are rare to come by, and I hope that I can participate in the program again soon.”



- Arman Athwal

Some of the experiences of shadowing in the clinic could include:


  • The practicalities of using scanning machines with patients and the difficulty or ease of that process. This could inspire an observer to design a new test or put in place a new process to support an easier process.
  • The guidance that a clinician gives to a patient about how to take a medicine or what the patient sees as the difficulties in taking that medicine.


Each role has something to teach the other. The observation of daily tasks is inspiring and creates useful insight.

We are looking to enable collaborations big and small, take the first step by joining the hub today.