Practitioner Profile

Reconstruction of brachial plexus (network of nerves) injuries

Open and endoscopic peripheral nerve surgeries

Microsurgical reconstruction of the upper limb

Hand and wrist fractures

Arthritis of the hand and wrist

Wrist arthroscopy

Ligament reconstruction for wrist instability.

Dr Tan was the former Head of Department and Senior Consultant of Hand and Reconstructive Microsurgery at Singapore General Hospital (SGH). She also served as the Director of micro-reconstruction service and Director of peripheral nerve and paralytic upper limb service at SGH. She is currently a visiting consultant at SGH.

She completed her Bachelor and Master’s degrees from the National University of Singapore. She was awarded the Health Manpower Development Plan scholarship by the Ministry of Health and went on to complete a 1-year fellowship in Taiwan, specialising in brachial plexus surgery and advanced microsurgery. She is a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh and a fellow of the Academy of Medicine in hand surgery.

She was the Deputy vice-chair for the education in the Musculoskeletal Sciences Academic Clinical Program at SingHealth. She was also the Program director for the SingHealth hand surgery Program and Core faculty for the SingHealth orthopaedic surgery program. She is currently a member of the Residency Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Health, which oversees the training of hand surgery residents in Singapore.

Dr Tan held concurrent teaching appointments at Duke-NUS Medical School and NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. She was also the President of the Singapore Society for Hand Surgery, Vice-chairman of the Chapter of Hand Surgeons, the College of Surgeons, Singapore, and Secretary of the Singapore Reconstructive Microsurgery Society. She is a member of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, the Asia Pacific Wrist Association and the International Microsurgery Club. She has been the organising chairperson of many inaugural courses and is the upcoming co-chairperson for Asia Pacific Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand in 2023.

She has been published widely in peer-reviewed journals on hand surgery. She speaks regularly at local, regional and international meetings where she focuses on topics such as brachial plexus injuries, thumb carpometacarpal arthritis, hand and wrist trauma.

Dr Tan is the recipient of numerous awards including the Singapore Health Quality service award, Outstanding faculty award & Faculty appreciation award for SingHealth Residency, and Orthopaedic teaching excellence award. Dr. Tan is also a Visiting Consultant at Singapore General Hospital (SGH).