Denis Cheong

Dr. Denis Cheongobtained his medical degree at the National University of Singapore in 1983 and went on to train in the field of General Surgery. He was admitted as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1989 and did his subspecialty training in Colorectal Surgery at the Singapore General Hospital. He was awarded the Ministry of Health Manpower Development Program (HMDP) scholarship in 1992 to do subspecialty training in Colorectal Surgery and spent a year as a fellow at the Department of Colorectal Surgery, Cleveland Clinic Florida training under Dr Steven Wexner.

On returning to Singapore, Dr Cheong spearheaded the development of Colorectal Surgery at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He was appointed consultant in 1995 and was subsequently promoted to senior consultant and head of Colorectal service. He has held appointments as Director of the Digestive Disease Centre and visiting consultant to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, John Hopkins (Singapore) International Medical Centre and the National Cancer Centre, Singapore. Dr Cheong was awarded another HMDP scholarship to further develop his expertise in Colorectal Cancer Surgery in 2003 and did attachments at St. Mark’s Hospital in London, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the University of Upsalla, Sweden. In 2008, he was again awarded the HMDP fellowship to hone his skills in Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery at the Australasian Endosurgery Centre in Brisbane.

Dr Cheong has extensive experience in managing anal conditions like hemorrhoids, fistula and fissure, as well as treatment of colorectal cancer and diverticular disease. He is an expert endoscopist and has performed more than 12,000 colonoscopies over the past 20 years. He is a pioneer in laparoscopic colon surgery in Singapore and having done more than 180 such operations. Dr. Cheong played a key role in developing Oncology services in TTSH and led the development of laparoscopic (keyhole) colorectal surgery in the hospital. He was committed to undergraduate and postgraduate training as a Senior Clinical Lecturer and examiner for the MBBS finals with the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. Dr Cheong is also actively involved in humanitarian work and was a member of the Singapore earthquake relief team to Turkey in 1999. Dr Cheong left TTSH and joined the Panasia Surgery group in 2009.