Volunteering inspires future eye surgeon
6th June, 2025
Raahat was inspired to pursue a career in eye health after getting hands-on experience and career guidance with Friends of Moorfields.
When East London student Raahat accompanied his grandad to an eye hospital appointment, he never imagined it could lead to him becoming a doctor, but thanks to the ‘Volunteer to Career’ programme, which he participated in as part of a volunteer role with Friends of Moorfields, he is now doing medical training with the aim of specialising in Ophthalmology.
The initiative, piloted by national charity Helpforce, is designed to harness the power of volunteering in tackling persistent recruitment issues across health services. It gives people who are interested in healthcare careers but don’t have a background in the field a chance to gain valuable experience and confidence before applying for paid roles or training.
Alongside 22-year-old Raahat, those who’ve moved into the sector include former members of the armed forces community, refugees, and individuals who’ve been long-term unemployed.
Raahat, from Seven Kings, said: “If it wasn’t for Volunteer to Career, I wouldn’t be working in healthcare – I just wouldn’t have seen it as a career path that was open to me.”
Raahat was a Pharmaceutical Chemistry undergraduate at Queen Mary University of London when an appointment at Moorfields Eye Hospital with his grandfather gave him a life-changing opportunity.
Sitting through his grandad’s eye examinations and watching the staff at work gave Raahat such a buzz of excitement that he immediately knew he wanted to be part of this clinical world. He got chatting to the busy Friends of Moorfields volunteers.
“There was just something about the hospital environment and especially ophthalmology that really appealed to me. No one in my family had been a medic and it seemed like a closed world to me – I had no idea how someone from my background could get into it. But I saw an opportunity here and I grabbed it with both hands,” said Raahat.
Through the Volunteer to Career scheme, operated as part of Friends of Moorfields’ volunteer service, Raahat volunteered once a week at Moorfields for a year. As well as helping the patients and doing administrative work but there was plenty of opportunity to witness highly qualified staff at work and experience the clinical setting. The highlight for Raahat was a chance to observe cataract eye surgery – it was a lightbulb moment.
“It was amazing,” he said. “I knew there and then that I wanted to be an eye surgeon. Volunteering in a specialist eye hospital gave me a real insight into that field of medicine. It convinced me that a career in medicine was what I wanted, and ultimately a career in Ophthalmology.”
“We are delighted to have partnered with Helpforce on this initiative, and we’re so proud of Raahat,” said our chief executive, Angela Smith. “As his story illustrates, Volunteer to Career is an effective way of opening up healthcare career opportunities to people with no prior experience in the field. To date, 67 of our volunteers have taken part or are currently taking part, and many of them have found fulfilling roles in the NHS, or embarked on further education and training related to health and care.”
“The success of the Volunteer to Career programme to date has been significant,” said Helpforce Chief Executive Amerjit Chohan. “Together with our partners in NHS Trusts and other organisations, we’ve helped people like Raahat to gain valuable experience before applying for paid roles. Through expertly designed and structured pathways, volunteers can find their niche without the immediate pressure of employment, while being upskilled and given confidence to take into job interviews.”
After finishing his first degree, Raahat is now in his second year of accelerated graduate medical training at the University of Southampton and is currently on a surgical placement at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital.
He added: “A high proportion of students on my course are from medical families. If you’re not from a family with medical connections it can be difficult to find a way to get the right experience. That’s what the VTC scheme did for me – it was a springboard into a medical career.”