Dr Tan Ek Khoon

Dr Tan Ek Khoon is a general surgeon at Gleneagles Hospital and Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Singapore.

His special interests are in transplant oncology and the surgical treatment of advanced cancer, which may require complex resection and reconstructive techniques. He is also a minimally invasive (laparoscopic and robotic) surgeon. The conditions he treats include liver tumours, liver cancers (primary or metastatic), choledochal cysts, cholangiocarcinomas (bile duct cancer), pancreatic tumours and cancers (including neuroendocrine tumours), gallstones and related conditions, and splenic lesions. He treats patients who have general surgical ailments such as hernias and acute emergencies, and subspecialty conditions involving the liver, pancreas, gallbladder and biliary tract.

Prior to entering private practice, Dr Tan was a senior consultant surgeon in the department of hepatopancreatobiliary and transplant surgery at Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

He graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and completed his training at SGH. He holds a master’s from NUS and a master’s in public health from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, USA. During his training, he was awarded the National Medical Research Council’s overseas research training fellowship to study the effects of ischaemia-reperfusion injury on hepatic oval cells at the Ochsner Medical Center, USA. He has been practising medicine for more than 15 years.

He is a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, UK and the Academy of Medicine, Singapore. Upon completing his specialist training, he underwent further subspecialty training at the Mayo Clinic, USA, completing an American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) accredited 2-year fellowship programme in abdominal organ transplantation. Dr Tan is an experienced liver transplant surgeon and an abdominal transplant surgeon accredited by the ASTS Transplant Accreditation & Certification Council in Singapore.

He was the clinical lead for the value-driven-care initiative for hepatectomy (liver resections) at SGH and was holding national and institutional appointments related to transplantation and research such as the chairperson of the National Organ Transplant Unit (liver subcommittee) and director of research at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Transplant Centre.

Dr Tan has authored and co-authored numerous scientific publications and he has served as invited faculty in local and international specialty conferences.

Besides his clinical work, he was a clinical assistant professor at both Duke-NUS Medical School and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

Dr Tan is a recipient of the Service with a Heart Award, and several Singapore Health Quality Service awards.