Dr Patrick Tan is currently the Medical Director of the Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Programme and the Haematology Service at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital.
Dr Tan graduated with a basic degree in Medicine at the University of Singapore in 1980. In 1985, he joined the Haematology Department at the Singapore General Hospital and became a full fledged Haematologist after 4 years of post-graduate training. In 1988-1989, he was posted as a special fellow to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre in Seattle, USA to do subspecialty work in Bone Marrow Transplant. He was re-invited back to the FHCRC in 1991 to further his research in the area of transplant Immunology. He returned back to Singapore in 1993 to head the Department of Haematology, SGH. He was Head of Haematology, SGH till end of April 2004.
Under his leadership, the Department of Haematology flourished to become a renowned centre for bone marrow transplant in SE Asia. The Department has performed more than 600 cases of haematopoietic stem cell transplant from 1985 to 2004. Dr Patrick Tan has done more than 150 cases of stem cell transplant at Mount Elizabeth Hospital from 2005.
Wide varieties of transplants were done; mainly are for the haematological malignancies and the lymphomas but also for some cases of life threatening non-malignant disorders; the auto-immune disorders and certain solid tumours.
These transplants include the classical matched siblings and the matched unrelated donor transplants which were mainly done for the acute leukemias, the severe aplastic anaemias, the myelodsplasias, the chronic leukemias, the Thalassaemias, and certain cases of lymphomas and myelomas; the autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplants done mainly for the lymphomas, myelomas, the acute myeloid leukemias and certain solid tumours; the non-myeloablative allogeneic stem cell transplants done mainly for older patients but now found to be useful in younger patients and the umbilical blood stem cell transplants done not only for paediatric patients but also for the older patients.
In 1995, Dr Patrick Tan was awarded the title of clinical Associate Professor by the National University of Singapore in recognition of his work
Several world firsts were achieved by Dr Tan during his time at SGH. These include the first successful case of unrelated blood stem cell transplant for Thalassaemia major; the first unrelated cord blood transplant for Thalassaemia major; the first non-myeloablative double cord blood transplant for acute myeloid leukemia and the first unrelated non-myeloablative cord blood stem cell transplant for multiple myeloma.
In 2002, Dr Tan was awarded the prestigious National award, the Excellence for Singapore award for his work on the transplant for Thalassaemia and for the non-myeloablative stem cell transplant using the umbilical cord as the source of transplant.
Dr Tan was made the Director of the National blood Bank from 1998 to 2002; a position he held concomitantly with the position as Head of Haematology during this period of time.
Dr Tan was appointed as the first Director of the Singapore cord blood bank in 2003.
