Dr. Wan-Cheng Tan joined as staff of St. Paul’s Hospital, Respiratory Division in April 2004. Prior to that, she was Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore and Consultant Physician and Pulmonologist at the National University Hospital in Singapore.
Dr. Tan obtained her medical degree from the University of Aberdeen in 1973. She is a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and of London and the Royal College of Physicians (Canada).
Dr Tan has long standing involvement with global management guidelines for asthma and COPD; she held positions as past-Chairperson of the Dissemination Committee and member of the Executive Committee of the Global Initiative on Asthma (GINA) and an advisory member of the Global Initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD). Dr Wan C Tan also serves as a member of the advisory group to the World Lung Health committee and the International Relations Committee of the American Thoracic Society.
An author of over 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals, Dr Tan serves as Editorial Board Member and Reviewer for various journals, including Respiratory Medicine, Journal of COPD, Journal of the IUATLD, Respirology, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, and CHEST.
She has current major research interests in: a) effects of marijuana smoking on respiratory disease and lung function; b) the long term effects of inhaled steroids in mild asthma; c) hospitalization and re-hospitalizations in COPD, d) characterization of mild/ early COPD; e) eosinophilic phenotypes in COPD.
She is the Co-Principle Investigator for the longitudinal CanCOLD [Canadian Cohort of Obstructive Lung Disease] Study, the definitive study for measuring and phenotyping COPD in the community; providing accurate population-based data on the prevalence and incidence of COPD; determining the impact of smoking and nonsmoking risk factors; the extent of health care utilization and health status and the economic and social burden of disease for Canada.
In addition to English, Dr Tan also speaks several Asian languages and dialects such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Malay.