Dr Sophie Hill

Medical Retina, Cataract and General Ophthalmology

Dr Sophie Hill

Medical Retina, Cataract and General Ophthalmology

“Taking time with patients to improve their understanding of their eye condition is a key part to the treatment journey”

– Dr Sophie Hill, MBBS FRCOphth

Dr Sophie Hill’s professional background

Discover more about this New Zealand eye expert below

Dr Hill completed her MBBS at St Georges University of London in 2008, also obtaining an Intercalated BSc from King’s College University, London. 

During her eight years of Ophthalmology specialty training in the East Midlands (UK), she undertook an Ophthalmology teaching fellowship and completed a Masters in Medical Education at the University of Nottingham, in order to cultivate her interest in health education. 

Admitted as a fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (UK) in 2018, she then under-took a two- year fellowship in medical retina at the University of Auckland. 

As an Ophthalmology Consultant at the Auckland District Health Board, she undertakes the clinical supervision of registrars; research fellows and nurse specialists and is an advocate for the inter-professional development of nurse specialists, optometrists and orthoptists to facilitate the further development of allied health professional led clinics. 

Her current academic and clinical interests are the use of telemedicine and technology to provide new patient care pathways.

Training and principle qualifications: 
  • Clinical Fellowship in Medical Retina, University of Auckland, NZ
  • Fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (FRCOphth), UK
  • Masters in Medical Education (Distinction), University of Nottingham, UK
  • Ophthalmology Clinical Teaching Fellowship, University of Nottingham, UK 
  • MBBS, St George’s University of London, UK
  • Intercalated BSc. in Biomedical Sciences, 2:1, King’s College University, London, UK
Positions Held:
  • Consultant Ophthalmologist, Auckland District Health Board 
  • Honorary Senior Lecturer, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Auckland
  • Junior Medical Retina Fellowship Clinical Supervisor, University of Auckland
  • Teaching Fellow, Department of Optometry, University of Auckland.
Dr Hill’s areas of specialisation:
  • Medical Retina
    diagnosis and management of common, and complex retina conditions including treatment with lasers and a wide range of intravitreal injectable drugs for retinal conditions including;

    • Age-related macular degeneration
    • Diabetic Retinopathy
    • Retinal Vascular Disease
  • Cataract surgery
  • Urgent Eye care

Dr Hill completed her MBBS at St Georges University of London in 2008, also obtaining an Intercalated BSc from King’s College University, London. 

During her eight years of Ophthalmology specialty training in the East Midlands (UK), she undertook an Ophthalmology teaching fellowship and completed a Masters in Medical Education at the University of Nottingham, in order to cultivate her interest in health education. 

Admitted as a fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (UK) in 2018, she then under-took a two- year fellowship in medical retina at the University of Auckland. 

As an Ophthalmology Consultant at the Auckland District Health Board, she undertakes the clinical supervision of registrars; research fellows and nurse specialists and is an advocate for the inter-professional development of nurse specialists, optometrists and orthoptists to facilitate the further development of allied health professional led clinics. 

Her current academic and clinical interests are the use of telemedicine and technology to provide new patient care pathways.

Sophie is married to Andrew, a civil engineer. Together they spend most weekends attempting to keep up with the maintenance on their garden and heritage villa. Sophie also loves the creative arts and nature, her happy place is attending an art gallery exhibition, or out exploring New Zealand’s diverse national parks.

Recent Publications:
  • Hill S, Mullins P, Murphy R, Schmiedel O, Vaghefi E, Ramke J, Squirrell D. Risk Factors for Progression to Referable Diabetic Eye Disease in People With Diabetes Mellitus in Auckland, New Zealand: A 12-Year Retrospective Cohort Analysis. Asia Pac J Ophthalmol, 2021. doi:10.1097/APO.0000000000000464
  • Ramachandran N, Schmiedel O, Vaghefi E, Hill S, Wilson G, Squirrell D. Evaluation of the prevalence of non-diabetic eye disease detected at first screen from a single region diabetic retinopathy screening program: a cross-sectional cohort study in Auckland, New Zealand . BMJ Open, 2021. doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-054225
  • Vaghefi E, Hill S, Kersten HM, Squirrell D. Quantification of Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography in Age and Age-related Macular Degeneration using Vessel Density analysis. Asia Pac J Ophthalmol, 2020. doi:10.1097/APO.000000000 0000278
  • Vaghefi E, Hill S, Kersten HM, Squirrell D. Multimodal Retinal Image Analysis via Deep Learning for the Diagnosis of Intermediate Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Feasibility Study. J Ophthalmology, 2020. doi.org/10.1155/2020/7493419.
  • Vaghefi E, Yang S, Hill S. et al. Detection of smoking status from retinal images; a Convolutional Neural Network study. Sci Rep 9, 7180, 2019. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-43670-0.
  • Hill S, Dennick R, Amoaku W. Present and future of the undergraduate ophthalmology curriculum: a survey of UK medical schools. International Journal of Medical Education 2017; 8:389-395.
Awards and Prizes
  • University of London Convocation Trust Medical Elective Award.
  • Myint Prize in Ophthalmology from St George’s University of London.

During her medical retina fellowship, Sophie travelled to Rarotonga with small team of clinicians from the Auckland district health board ophthalmology department, to provide diabetic retinal screening and retinal laser treatment to residents in Rarotonga and the neighbouring Cook Islands. Now that the borders have reopened she hopes to continue with these annual volunteer trips to Rarotonga.