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Centre for Spine & Scoliosis Surgery

Adjunct Associate Professor Hee Hwan Tak – Medical Director and Senior Consultant

Adj A/Professor Hee Hwan Tak is a fellowship-trained spine surgeon who specialises in degenerative, traumatic, neoplastic, and congenital disorders of the spine, as well as spinal deformities. His practice is solely dedicated to conservative as well as surgical treatment of various spinal disorders. His special areas of interests are in surgery for congenital and acquired spinal deformity, minimal access spinal surgery, spinal tumour surgery, cervical spine surgery and artificial disc replacement (non-fusion) surgery.

Adj A/Prof Hee has been in clinical practice since 1990 when he graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He obtained his post-graduate degrees in surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1995. He underwent his training in Orthopaedic Surgery at the National University Hospital (NUH), and completed advanced surgical training in Orthopaedics in 1999. In 2000, he spent a year on a Clinical Fellowship in Spinal Surgery in USA, training at the Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana and the University of Kentucky in Louisville and Lexington. Prior to joining the Singapore Medical Group as Medical Director of the Centre for Spine & Scoliosis Surgery (CSS), Adj A/Professor Hee served as Senior Consultant and Deputy Head of the University Spine Centre at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, NUH. He was previously also the Clinical Director at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, NUH.

Adj A/Professor Hee has won multiple awards for excellent patient care including the NUH STAR Award in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008, as well as the SPRING EXSA Gold Award in 2009. Adj A/Professor Hee is actively involved in the teaching of both undergraduate and post-graduate medical trainees. He has also been invited overseas to many countries to impart and share his knowledge of spinal surgery to his overseas counterparts.

Adj A/Professor Hee's research interests are in degenerative spinal disease, in particular the basic science of intervertebral disc degeneration and regeneration. He is also involved in the evaluation of a novel non-invasive quantitative assessment method for functional recovery in patients after low back surgery, as well as the clinical outcomes after spinal surgeries. His research work was recognised at the 15th Triennial Congress of Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Association 2007 and the 81st Annual Congress of the Japanese Orthopaedic Association 2008. Adj A/Professor Hee is currently Visiting Consultant at NUH, the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and the Military Medical Institute. He also holds an adjunct Associate Professor position at NUS and is a Visiting Professor at the Clinical Medical College of Yangzhou University, China.

Adj A/Professor Hee is a member of several international spine societies including the North American Spine Society, the Cervical Spine Research Society, the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine, the Spine Arthroplasty Society and the AO Spine International. Regionally, he is a member of the Asian Association for Dynamic Osteosynthesis, the Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Association, the Singapore Orthopaedic Association and the Singapore Medical Association. He sits on the editorial board of The Spine Journal, the Journal of Orthopaedic Science, the Open Spine Journal, the Open Orthopaedic Journal and the World Journal of Orthopaedics.

Adj A/Professor Hee is currently President of the Singapore Back Society (since 2005) and past Chairman of the AO Spine Singapore chapter (2007 to 2010).