Declan W. Flanagan
The Power List 2019 – Mentors
Declan W. Flanagan
Consultant Ophthalmologist, Moorfields Eye Hospital, Vice President – Elect, Royal College of Ophthalmologists, Chairman, Research Governance committee, Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Institute of Ophthalmology, London, UK.
This is what one of Flanagan’s nominators said about him: “He has put clinical leadership and involvement in management on the map for UK ophthalmology. He has led by example, and identified and helped many current and emerging ophthalmic clinical leaders.”
Who have been your mentors?
My mentor in the crucial early years as a consultant ophthalmic surgeon was John Scott, vitreoretinal surgeon from Cambridge, UK; my other mentors include David Hardy, neurosurgeon from Cambridge, who helped me in the high-stakes game of surviving as a new, naive medical director, and John Wright, ophthalmic surgeon from Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, who I looked up to as a trainee struggling with cataract surgery.
What was the luckiest break of your career?
Being invited back to Moorfields to be a medical retinal consultant in 2004. This led directly to being the Medical Director of Moorfields from 2009 to 2018.
What would be a piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
Do not wait to be asked. Power is taken, not given. Always put patients first.
What’s the best part of being an ophthalmologist?
Working with a team keeping patients seeing well, so that they can remain independent and active in the long term.
