Dr. Wu Pang Hung graduated from medical school at National University of Singapore (NUS) as Dean’s list, being top 10 in his final year cohort. He obtained diploma in family medicine in NUS, and his membership diploma in Royal College Of Surgeons Of Ireland, Master in Orthopaedic Surgery, Yong Loo Lin NUS and Fellowship in Royal College Of Surgeons Of Edinburgh. He spent 2 years overseas through various fellowship. He was awarded AO Trauma fellowship to complete a fellowship in University Of Heidelberg, BG Trauma Centre Ludwigshafen. Subsequently, he is the first Singaporean orthopaedic surgeon with Ministry Of Health Scholarship to complete a full 18 months fellowship in both open complex spinal surgery, pediatric and adult spinal deformity and spinal tumor fellowship in North America, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto Sick Kids, Sunnybrook Hospital in Canada as well as endoscopic spine surgery (one of the least invasive form of spinal decompression and fusion surgery) in Nanoori Hospital, South Korea. He further honed his skills in spinal navigation in Okayama Rosai Hospital, Japan; St Peter’s and Wooridul Hospital, South Korea in disc replacement surgery prior to entering private practice.
His wide range of experience, having travelled to 3 continents helps in his decision making for patients in spinal surgery. His main clinical and academic interest includes Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (Endoscopic Spine Surgery) for cervical, thoracic and lumbar degenerative conditions, pain management, spinal deformity, spinal tumor and spinal trauma.
He is internationally renowned for his skills in endoscopic spine surgery, an ultra-minimally invasive spinal approach and motion preservation surgeries. His orthopaedic surgical mottos are “small is beautiful, less is more, tissue and motion conservation is key.”
Dr Wu Pang Hung is committed to teaching; despite being a private practice surgeon, he is a visiting consultant to National University Hospital (NUHS), Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and National Neuroscience Institute (NNI). He is also a Visiting Professor of Henan Provincial Third People’s Hospital.
Prior to entering private practice, Dr. Wu is instrumental to set up LEADS (Local Endoscopic Awake Discectomy Surgery) protocol and ambulatory Uniportal and Biportal Endsocopic Spine Surgery for lumbar decompression and discectomy in Ng Teng Fong General Hospital. Together with his team of endoscopic spine surgeons in his government practice, they published their clinical results in established spinal and medical journals. He is the first Singaporean surgeon to lead his team to publish their results in European Spine Journal on “Ambulatory uniportal versus biportal endoscopic decompression for lumbar spinal stenosis” with an average stay for patients to be less than 24 hours in his cohort of patients who underwent spine surgery for spinal stenosis. He was awarded for providing excellent service to his patients during his time in National University Health System when he won Patient Service Quality Service Ambassador Award in 2018 and Service Ambassador Gold Award in 2022. Dr. Wu was featured several times in English, Chinese and Tamil TV, Newspapers and Radio for his work in development of endoscopic spine surgery in Singapore for the past years.
Dr. Wu Pang Hung is well known teacher in spinal endoscopy in both Uniportal and Biportal Endoscopic Spine surgery. Due to his broad surgical expertise, he had been appointed consulting and education roles in several established pharmaceutical, spinal endoscopic and open spinal surgical implant companies. He taught in numerous cadaveric courses and conduct live surgeries in different parts of the world. He is an invited speakers for many international and regional conferences.
He published extensively in spinal and medical journals. Together with his Korean colleagues, his team pioneered several endoscopic spine surgical techniques in endoscopic fusion, Bertolloti endoscopic release and several cervical, thoracic and lumbar conditions.
Some of the papers won the best paper awards in Journal Of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery Techniques and being cover page journal of Journal Surgical Techniques Development. Dr. Wu was appointed Guest editorial board member in North American Spine Society (NASS)- Neurospine Journal special issue on Endoscopic Spine Surgery , Journal Of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery and World Neurosurgery Journal Special Issue on Endoscopic Spine Surgery in 2019-2021. He was appointed the Editor of Medicina Journal Endoscopic Spine Special Edition in 2022 and Lead Editor for JMISST special issue of minimally invasive approach to the cervical-thoracic spine in 2023. Dr. Wu is a reviewer for a number of major scientific journals in spine, neurosurgery, pain management and orthopaedic surgery. He was described by Lin et al in Frontier Surgery Journal September 2022 edition, “Current Status and research hotspots in the field of full endoscopic spine surgery: A bibliometric analysis” as one of the world most productive authors in endoscopic spine surgery. He is also in AO spine taskforce in writing Endoscopic Spine Chapters and has authored several book chapters in various Orthopaedic and Neurosurgical textbooks.
He is actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and have won Orthopaedic Teaching Excellence Award, National University Of Singapore in academic years from 2015 to 2017 for undergraduate education and is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Yong Loo Lin School Of Medicine.
