Prof Celia Tan started in healthcare as a physiotherapist in 1983 and quickly developed the passion for clinical capacity building and service expansion to meet the increasing health care needs of her patients and fellow medical colleagues. In her 35 years of experience in the healthcare sector, she has started many new clinical services and educational and research centres in SGH and in SingHealth. She was recently awarded the Monisaraphorn Thipadin Medal from the Prime Minister of Cambodia, His Excellency, Hun Sen, for the more than 15 years of volunteer services in developing education and health care in Cambodia.
Her clinical expertise and interest started with sports therapy with the Singapore Sports Council, moving to working with disabled children and premature neonates at the National University Hospital and now specialising in spine rehabilitation and exercise prescription for the disabled, elderly and oncology populations in Singapore General Hospital and SingHealth.
A strategic visionary and administrative leader, Celia established the satellite Rehabilitation services (Rehab Associates) in the community polyclinics to bring rehabilitation closer to the patient’s home in 2002; started the first postgraduate Allied Health training institute (PGAHI) in 2003; created an interdisciplinary SGH Lifestyle Improvement and Fitness Centre (LIFE) in 2007, with the Heads of Endocrine and Behavioural Medicine Departments; set-up the SHS Group AH Office in 2011; Biomedical Skills training and research laboratory to support AH and medical research in robotics and movement science in 2013 and College of AH (CAH) in 2017.
She is currently Senior Director, Special Projects and held the position of Group Director, AH SHS for 3 terms (9 years), but is also actively involved in teaching at the PGAHI and CAH, which provides much needed continuing training for our local and Asian AH professionals to develop new clinical skills and knowledge, as well as training for educators and researchers.
Her overseas education and research collaboration include Australia, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. She volunteers as a Singapore Specialist Volunteer Overseas Team Leader with Singapore International Foundation and Temasek Foundation in medical missions since 2002, and is also the co-Core Lead for Capacity Building with the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute.
Managing international medical and humanitarian missions has always been a passion for Prof Celia, who takes the lead in meeting up with the host country representatives and working together with all the industry partners to conduct feasibility studies to bridge the gaps in healthcare needs. Often these feasibility studies require detailed interviews with the professional cohort, patients, surveys and pilot studies to determine the impact on the patients. All training and projects will evaluate the outcome before and after the training sessions or interventions to ensure there is proper audit and follow-up of outcomes. The greatest challenge in these projects is to ensure that there is multidisciplinary healthcare professional collaboration, governmental support, joint industry partnerships and system changes that can be sustained in the long run.
After her PhD studies in 2003, Celia developed an interest in innovative robotics and rehabilitation research that has seen her embark on many innovative device collaborations with engineering lecturers and students from various academic institutions. She was appointed Core lead for the Bioengineering research platform in SGH in 2013 and is PI for the MOH Ageless grant for robotic Ultrasound (US) scanning and home exercise to prevent frailty in 2017/18. These collaborative innovative ideas have won local innovation awards and been patented, commercialised and published.
With an eye on professional and community outreach, Celia has been invited to provide physiotherapy and Allied Health leadership consultation to the Ministry of Health, Singapore Institute of Technology and Singapore Physiotherapy Association. She is also an Honorary Fellow of Melbourne University, Physiotherapy Steering Committee, University of Health Science, Cambodia and External Examiner with Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia. Celia’s passion is to encourage health care professionals to rise to their highest potential as clinicians, educators and researchers, so that patients receive the best care possible.