Dr Tan Seang Beng

Dr Tan Seang Beng graduated from the National University of Singapore in 1981 and completed his orthopaedic residency training in Singapore in 1989. He subsequently worked as a post-doctoral fellow in spine surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas from 1989-1990. He practised as a Consultant in the Department of Orthopaedics at the Singapore General Hospital from 1991 to February 2018, and served as the Director of its Spine Service from 2005 to 2018. He served as the Head of the Department of Paediatric Orthopaedics at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital from 2001-2003, and the Head of the Department of Orthopaedics of the Singapore General Hospital from 2002 to 2012. To date, he continues to be a Visiting Consultant at Singapore General Hospital. He is passionate about teaching medical students, orthopaedic residents, local and international surgeons, and was instrumental in the setup of the Duke-National University of Singapore Musculoskeletal Program in 2010. He currently holds the appointment of Adjunct Associate Professor with Duke-NUS Faculty of Medicine.

Dr Tan’s main interests in spine surgery are minimally invasive spine surgery and spinal deformity. He was a pioneer of spinal microsurgery, endoscopic surgery, and computer aided surgery in Singapore. He was awarded the Russell Hibbs award by the Scoliosis Research Society in 1996. He is a strong proponent of outcomes research and evidence based surgery, and was responsible for setting up the SGH’s Orthopaedic Diagnostic Centre in 1998, holding the position of Director till 2018. The Centre, which is internationally recognized, has been collecting prospectively all orthopaedic surgery outcomes since 1998, with over 10000 patients in its spine database alone. He is a keen advocate of minimally invasive spine surgery (MIS), has conducted numerous international workshops and symposia on various aspects of MIS, and has trained spine surgeons from across the world. Dr Tan has performed over 5000 spinal surgeries, with over 50 publications in peer reviewed journals. He is active as a Board member of the Pacific Asian Society of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (PASMISS) as well as the Singapore Spine Society.

Dr Tan was bestowed the Singhealth Outstanding Clinician Award for 2013, as well as the Pingat Bakti Setia in the same year. He served as the President of the Singapore Spine Society for 2018/2019. Since March 2018, he has been in private practice at the Orthopaedic & Spine Clinic Pte Ltd, specializing in all aspects of spinal surgery and rehabilitation.