Tan Seang Beng

Dr Tan Seang Beng is an orthopaedic surgeon at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, Singapore. His main interests are in minimally invasive spine surgery (MIS) and spinal deformity. For more than 25 years, he served as a consultant in the department of orthopaedics at Singapore General Hospital (SGH). To date, he has performed more than 5,000 spinal surgeries. At SGH, Dr Tan was the director of its spine service from 2005 – 2018, and head of the department of orthopaedics from 2002 – 2012. He continues to be a visiting consultant at SGH. He was the head of the department of paediatric orthopaedics at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital from 2001 – 2003. He completed his orthopaedic residency training in Singapore in 1989, and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow in spine surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas from 1989 – 1990. He is an adjunct associate professor with Duke-NUS Medical School. He is passionate about teaching medical students, orthopaedic residents, local and international surgeons, and played an active role in the setup of the musculoskeletal programme at Duke-NUS Medical School in 2010. He is active as a board member of the Pacific Asian Society of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (PASMISS), the International Group for Advancement in Spinal Science (IGASS), and is a member of the AO Lumbar Technical Committee. He served as the president of the Singapore Spine Society for 2018/2019. He has been published in over 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and is 1 of 6 consultants worldwide for Johnson & Johnson in the development of the next generation of MIS. Dr Tan 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 SGH’s Orthopaedic Diagnostic Centre in 1998, and served as its director until 2018. In 2013, he received the SingHealth Outstanding Clinician Award and the prestigious Pingat Bakti Setia (Long Service Award).