After qualifying he became Demonstrator of Anatomy, Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1849. Following the death of Bransby Blake Cooper (nephew of renown Surgeon Sir Astley Cooper) Poland took over Cooper’s lectures on surgery; becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1847. Poland was elevated to the rank of full surgeon in 1861 and after the retirement of Mr France, taking charge of the Ophthalmology department. Poland also held an appointment at the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields From 1848-1861.
Poland's reputation as a teacher of surgery and as an expert operator was mainly confined to Guy's Hospital and the pupils attached to him. Poland's systematic method was much appreciated by his students. With them he was a great favourite, although his unprepossessing appearance made it seem unlikely. It was said that his ill health and domestic trials tended to make him "quite reckless of professional success".
Poland's Triennial Prize Dissertation on "The Origin, Connection and Distribution of the Nerves of the Human Eye and its Appendages" was awarded an honorarium of fifty guineas, he was awarded a Jacksonian Prize from the College of Surgeons in 1857 for his Essay on "Gunshot Wounds and their Treatment" and the Fothergill medal from the Medical Society of London in 1853 for "Injuries and Wounds of the Abdomen". Poland also contributed numerous papers to the Guy's Hospital Reports (1843-1865), while he was also co-editor alongside Sir Samuel Wilks.
Wilks in describing his friend and colleague said " that if Poland had been shut in a room containing not a single book, but only pens and paper, he could have written a complete work on surgery: not in a vague way, giving merely general descriptions, but in a systematic manner detailing the distinct forms and varieties of the diseases then in his mind."
In 1867 the chronic cough ascribed to exposure of infection in the ward forced Poland to cease lecturing and thereafter his health gradually declined. He lived his last years largely retired in Blackheath with his father; however In spite of his violent cough, he continued to see some patients at Guy's Hospital, his last visit being on August 17th 1872. Poland died on 21st August 1872 at the age of 51 of "consumption of the lungs" (pulmonary tuberculosis).