Dr Chang Haw Chong

Dr Chang Haw Chong is an orthopaedic surgeon practising at Gleneagles Hospital and Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, Singapore. He specialises in orthopaedic sports medicine.

Dr Chang graduated from the National University of Singapore Faculty of Medicine in 1994. He was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians of Glasgow in 1998. The same year, he obtained his Master of Medicine in General Surgery. In 2001, he obtained his fellowship in orthopaedics from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Dr Chang was awarded the Health Manpower Development Programme (HMDP) scholarship from the Ministry of Health to train at the University of Louisville in USA as a clinical fellow in orthopaedic sports medicine. He was mentored by Professor David NM Caborn, a leading sports orthopaedic surgeon in the USA with a special interest in the use of allograft tissues for sports reconstructive surgeries and meniscus transplantations.

Dr Chang served as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Changi General Hospital and as Deputy Head of the Changi Sports Medicine Centre (CSMC). He was instrumental in developing the Orthopaedic Sports Service in CSMC, eventually becoming Director of Orthopaedic Sports Service in 2007. Among his many achievements was the setting up of the CSMC Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Programme in 2004, which has treated over 250 patients with anterior cruciate ligament injuries annually. Among his patients were national football players and Olympic athletes.

A firm believer in the need to contribute to teaching and training, Dr Chang is a clinical lecturer with the National University of Singapore. For his contribution to undergraduate medical teaching of orthopaedic surgery, he was awarded the Best Orthopaedic Teacher award for consecutive terms. As Director of Orthopaedic Sports Medicine at Changi General Hospital, he has trained surgeons from the Asian region in orthopaedic sports medicine. He has also organised cadaveric workshops in shoulder arthroscopy, knee double-bundle anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction as well as autologous chondrocyte transplantation for local and international orthopaedic surgeons.

An avid researcher, Dr Chang has published over 20 peer-reviewed papers, a majority of them on orthopaedic sports medicine in prestigious sports medicine journals such as the American Journal of Sports Medicine and the Arthroscopy Journal. Dr Chang has contributed a book chapter on “Allograft Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction” in the 4th edition of Insall and Scott Surgery of the knee, a textbook for knee surgeons. He also co-authored a paper on a new surgical technique in double-bundle anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. He has been invited to speak on many issues related to sports medicine at local and international meetings. Dr Chang also serves on the editorial board of the Singapore Medical Journal.