Home / Orthopaedic surgery / Dr Kelvin Tan Guoping
Orthopaedic Consultant Surgeon — hip and knee
MBBS (Singapore) · MRCS (Edinburgh) · M.Med (Orthopaedics) · FRCS (Edinburgh, Orthopaedics)
Dr Kelvin Tan Guoping is a Singapore-trained Orthopaedic Consultant Surgeon in private practice, specialising in hip and knee replacement. He completed postgraduate specialist training in orthopaedic surgery and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2015. He is registered with the Singapore Specialist Accreditation Board.
Before entering private practice he served in the Adult Reconstruction Service at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He is a key opinion leader regionally in robotic joint replacement and Enhanced Recovery After Surgery, and sat on several national committees in both fields.
In 2017 he completed an international orthopaedic fellowship under Professor Ross Crawford in Brisbane, Australia, with an emphasis on robotic-assisted joint replacement, primary and revision hip and knee reconstruction, complex hip reconstruction including impaction bone grafting for failed hip replacements and congenital hip dysplasia, and peri-prosthetic fracture fixation.
Dr Tan's practice uses robotics and computer navigation for hip and knee replacement, including unicompartmental — partial — knee replacement. He works across the various approaches to hip replacement, including the Direct Anterior Approach for total hip replacement.
He is a certified robotic trainer, and has been invited both in Singapore and overseas to teach and demonstrate his techniques in hip and knee surgery.
Knee osteoarthritis · Knee pain · Hip pain · Knee fracture · Knee bursitis · Torn meniscus
Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) is a set of protocols covering the period before, during and after an operation, designed to reduce complications and get patients moving sooner. Applied to knee replacement, it shortens the hospital stay without compromising the outcome.
Dr Tan was Clinical Champion of the Tan Tock Seng Hospital Knee Replacement Clinical Pathway and anchored its ERAS Knee Replacement Taskforce, where the protocols he helped put in place brought knee replacement to a same-day procedure.
In 2019, under a Ministry of Health HMDP Scholarship, he led a team of surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and allied health professionals to Royal Jubilee Hospital in Scotland and Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in England to develop those protocols further. He sat on several national committees in this field before moving into private practice.
Dr Tan has published in international peer-reviewed medical journals and presented both in Singapore and abroad.
Dr Tan is regularly approached by national media for comment on sports injuries, particularly the rise seen in younger and recreational athletes.
No. You can book directly. Bring any X-ray, MRI or CT images and reports, and a referral letter if you have one.
Robotic assistance and computer navigation improve the accuracy of implant positioning during hip and knee replacement. The surgeon performs the operation; the technology gives tighter control over alignment, which affects how the joint feels and how long it lasts.
Unicompartmental knee replacement resurfaces only the damaged part of the knee rather than the whole joint. Where the damage is confined to one compartment it preserves more of the natural knee, and recovery is usually quicker.
Not necessarily. Joint pain is often managed without surgery — injections, physiotherapy, weight management and activity modification. The consultation establishes what stage the joint is at and what the options are.
Enhanced Recovery After Surgery: a set of protocols covering the period before, during and after an operation, designed to reduce complications and get patients moving sooner. Dr Tan anchored the ERAS knee replacement taskforce at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, where the protocols brought knee replacement to a same-day procedure.
English, Mandarin, Teochew and Hokkien.
Bring your scans. You will leave knowing what stage the joint is at and what the options are — surgical and otherwise.
