Moorfields optometrist awarded coveted honour from the College of Optometrists

Dr Anish Jindal, principal optometrist at Moorfields Eye Hospital and academic module lead at University College London, joins the exclusive club of 81 optometrists across the UK who have achieved the coveted Fellowship of Optometry from the College of Optometrists since it began in 2008.

The award recognises Dr Jindal’s achievements throughout his career including his dedication to advanced clinical practice, research and education to improve patient care, developing service pathways, supporting research and development of eyecare professionals.

Dr Jindal’s research highlights include being first author on a Cochrane systematic review where he worked with the Cochrane collaboration with a team of international experts in their respective fields for over three years.

The topic of the review was a priority area for Cochrane, given people with primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG) accounts for 50% of glaucoma blindness.

This review provided important information on the detection of those at risk of PACG and has been cited by numerous international clinical guidelines which will inform decisions of clinicians internationally.

He has also recently been awarded the Innovation Grant from Moorfields Eye Charity as a principal investigator to further investigate clinical decision making by community optometrists when evaluating those at risk of PACG.

Dr Jindal said: “To be become a Fellow of the College of Optometrists is a huge honour, as this recognises an exceptional level of achievement and contribution made to the profession.

“Being commended by my peers is humbling and I have always strived to improve patient care and clinicians’ ability to develop themselves as well as pushing their boundaries of what they are capable of.

“This is only the start and I hope I can make use of this status to continue developing the profession.”

The accolade also acknowledges Dr Jindal’s academic advancements and professional development, which has seen him gain several postgraduate qualifications, including PhD, master’s in clinical optometry, independent prescribing qualifications and diploma in glaucoma(specialism in glaucoma).

Dr Jindal has worked in a whole range of services since being at Moorfields, he currently utilises his skills within the external disease, A&E and glaucoma clinics.

He is also optometry learning and development lead as well as an NIHR funded clinical research fellow investigating whether artificial intelligence (AI) can support casualty decision-making in triage.

Dr Jindal also serves as a subject matter expert in glaucoma and is on several independent prescribing review groups for the College of Optometrists.