Fellowship Bio

General surgery and transplant registrar with a passion for data-driven healthcare. This fellowship has been a fantastic opportunity to lead digital innovation, building on my experience in service improvement, change management and digital projects in healthcare.

Fellowship Project

Donor Assessment & Identification Tool ‘DONAIT’: Optimising the Eye Donation Pathway with AI Augmented Screening

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust

The DONAIT project set out to transform how we identify eye donors by creating a digital tool to scan electronic health records (EHRs) in real time. What began as just a concept, we have developed over the year into a viable screening tool, a unique opportunity to experience the full AI lifecycle, from grassroots innovation to prototype development. Starting with just my supervisor and me, we brought together general and transplant healthcare professionals, data scientists, operational and governance teams to define clinical requirements, ethical safeguards and the precise data elements needed. We authored a comprehensive, peer-reviewed research protocol to guide tool development. In my role as project coordinator, I secured grant funding, presented to hospital leadership to obtain technical support and data access, and mapped out a detailed timelines, deliverables and resources. Using a sample of anonymised EHR data from a single hospital, we built an initial prototype tool that demonstrated promising results in flagging potential eye donors - proof that the concept can reliably identify potential eye donors. Continuing work will scale the model using larger datasets to ensure robustness, enhance explainability for clinical users and integrate DONAIT into existing workflows with clear, actionable alerts for eye-retrieval teams. These steps will help ensure more donation opportunities are captured efficiently, freeing clinicians to focus on patient care and ultimately restoring sight to more people.

Fellowship Testimonial

This fellowship has provided a strong foundation in the clinical application of AI, from model development and validation to ethics and regulatory considerations. Coupled with hands-on experience across the full AI lifecycle, it has been invaluable for my professional development. I particularly valued the interdisciplinary collaboration: problem-scoping with clinical teams, refining ethical safeguards with governance, and iterating prototypes with data scientists. Securing grant funding and engaging hospital leadership has also strengthened my communication and advocacy skills. This fellowship has been a pivotal step in my career, and I am continuing my digital journey through a clinical research fellowship and an MSc in Data Science for Health & Social Care. By combining clinical insight with digital & AI expertise, I hope this fellowship is the beginning of a career as a leader in digitally enhanced healthcare – delivering innovations that improve outcomes for patients.