Heartbeat: Musarrat Allie crowned ophthalmic imaging poster award winner

September 16, 2020

Musarrat Allie is a Senior Medical Technical Officer who has worked within the visual function department at Birmingham Midland Eye Centre for the past 30 years. Musarrat originally qualified in pharmacy and began her career within retail pharmacy, where she worked for several years before taking a break to bring up her family.

Musarrat joined Dudley Road Hospital pharmacy in 1985, and after five successful years joined the visual function department. Whilst Musarrat had no prior electrophysiology experience, she was encouraged to apply for the role and to her amazement, was successful and has never looked back! It has been her home away from home ever since.

The visual function department is unique in that it is the only department within the whole of the UK that conducts colour tests, electrophysiology, ultrabiomicroscopy, ultrasound and visual fields within the same department.

Fast forward to October 2019, and Musarrat and her colleague Bianca Carrion attended an International Imaging Conference in Paris. Both were encouraged by their clinical lead (Dr Peter Good) to attend the course and present their posters.

Musarrat’s poster was titled ‘Investigation of Anterior Segment Dysgenesis (ASD) using Ultrasound Biomicroscopy (UBM)’. It went on to be crowned as the ophthalmic imaging best poster award winner at the conference – which was host to professionals from all over the world who had entered posters for consideration for this award.

Musarrat was thrilled to have her poster win the award. She commented: “ASD is a spectrum of disorders associated with glaucomatous optic neuropathy. In children and very young adults, ASD manifests as abnormalities of the cornea, lens and iris – resulting in drainage angle defects which often require surgical intervention

She added: “I love the work that I do and winning this accolade is something I am incredibly proud of.”

Well done Musarrat from everyone at SWB