Black History Month: Three exceptional nurses

To mark Black History Month, Moorfields Eye Hospital is proud to spotlight the achievements of three nurses from across our sites.

Joyce Amanor

Joyce (pictured centre), a senior nurse from Moorfields Eye Centre at Croydon University Hospital, has just been honoured with an RCN (Royal College of Nursing) Rising Star Award for her outstanding contribution to the capital’s health and care system. This year’s theme is ‘Anti-racism: Striving for justice and promoting wellbeing’.

Her colleagues, who nominated her, described her as “An excellent nurse, dedicated to supporting her patients and passionate about ensuring the highest levels of patient safety and quality care. On one occasion, Joyce helped an elderly patient decide to undergo an operation by just spending some extra time with him, striking up a rapport. Afterwards, she personally went out of her way to drop off his forgotten medicine and belongings to his nursing home.”

Joyce said “I’m over the moon about this, and totally surprised. I love being a nurse, and nothing gives me more pleasure than when patients tell our team how happy they are that they can see better.”

Roxanne Crosby-Nwaobi

Roxanne (left), Moorfields’ lead nurse for research, has been awarded an honorary associate professor position at UCL.

Sheila Adam, chief nurse and director of allied professionals and infection prevention and control, said “This is a huge accolade as UCL has a very high bar for awarding academic titles and few, if any, nurses have received this.

“Roxanne is a great ambassador for nursing research and has worked tirelessly to lead this. I am delighted that she has now achieved this significant step.”

Roxanne has also worked on developing and promoting ROAM (Research Opportunities at Moorfields), a unique and easy way for patients to put themselves forward to participate in one of the wide range of clinical trials we are currently recruiting for, as well as being alerted of possible new trials as we start them.

Nicola Dunlop

Nurse consultant Nicola Dunlop (right) has been awarded a PhD, only the second Moorfields nurse to obtain a doctorate.

For Nicola, working at Moorfields means learning, teaching, research and delivering excellent patient care.  

In addition to her PhD, she is an advocate for disadvantaged people. Her research, ‘Living with Benign Essential Blepharospasm (BEB)’, addresses the inequality of access to care for people with this rare chronic neurological condition that causes blindness. Nicola now trains our optometrists to administer botulinum toxin for blepharospasm. 

Nicola has used her research to introduce a telemedicine assessment clinic for patients with BEB, an online focus group and a nurse-led multidisciplinary clinic.

She has also hosted national courses about BEB and has helped to train a nurse at St George’s so they can offer outreach care.

Reflecting on her doctorate, Nicola said: “As a black woman, I would like to not only inspire my community but all nurses at Moorfields to learn, educate and undertake research.”