Qualified MBChB, 1976 University of Aberdeen. Ophthalmology training at King’s College Hospital, St Thomas’s Hospital and Moorfields Eye Hospital, London. Fellowship in glaucoma with Professor George Spaeth, Philadelphia, USA 1982 and with Professor Roger Hitchings at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, 1984-85.
Since 1986 I have been a Consultant in charge of the glaucoma unit at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. I have 55 publications in peer-reviewed journals. My main fields of research have been in angle closure glaucoma, visual field analysis and the surgical treatment of glaucoma. I published the world’s first comparative study of phaco-trabeculectomy (Ophthalmic Surgery 1993).
Since 1998 I have exclusively performed non-penetrating glaucoma surgery instead of trabeculectomy and have published 4 papers on this technique including the largest study with the longest follow-up of viscocanalostomy in print in the world (Clin Exp Opht 2008). I published the first comparative study in the literature of the different techniques of non-penetrating trabeculectomy – namely viscocanalostomy and deep sclerectomy (Acta Ophth Scand 2003).
I am currently training surgeons in visco-canalostomy and phaco visco-canalostomy and have endeavoured to raise the awareness among ophthalmologists performing glaucoma surgery that the use of anti-fibrotic drugs with trabeculectomy exposes the patient to long-term risks of severe sight-threatening complications. I am a frequently invited to lecture at National and International Scientific meetings on Glaucoma Surgery.