Dr Tham Cheok Fai: "father"of neurosurgery (8 October 1925 - 4 December 2013).

How His Legacy Began Although not the fi rst neurosurgeon in Singapore, Dr Tham is acknowledged as the “father” of Singapore neurosurgery. Dr Tham was already a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at “C” Orthopaedic Unit, Singapore General Hospital (SGH), with a special interest in spinal surgery when Dr Tseng Yuen Lin, the fi rst fully trained neurosurgeon in Singapore, passed away. In 1962, he was sent by the Ministry of Health to train in neurosurgery under Dr Murray Falconer at Guy’s, Maudsley and King’s College Hospitals in London. He returned in 1965 to start a section in Neurosurgery at the Department of Surgery under Dr Choo Jim Eng at the Thomson Road Hospital, with only Tuesdays to do his operations. I was posted to Thomson Road Hospital in 1972 as a houseman. Each month, one houseman would be posted to the Surgery Suite to assist consultants during operations. When my turn came on the fi rst Tuesday, I asked Dr Tham whether I could assist him. He happily agreed. Dr Tham was meticulous in his operations. In those days, neurosurgery was carried out on the same day following imaging with ventriculograms or cerebral angiogram. With the patient intubated under general anaesthesia, a burr-hole was made and about 20 ml of air was introduced into the lateral ventricle. We would then accompany the still-anaesthetised patient to the Radiology Suite. There, we had to lift and turn the unconscious patient over one full turn to make the air fl ow into the other ventricles before taking X-rays. Using the primitive equipment available then, routine operations sometimes lasted more than 12 hours. One needed patience and a strong mental and physical constitution to do neurosurgery. In 1973, the Department of Neurosurgery and Neurology was set up at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) as recommended by the Committee on Medical Specialisation. Dr Tham was to head the Department of Neurosurgery until his retirement. To train more neurosurgeons, he reached an agreement with Dr John Lekias and Dr Bryant Stokes of the Neurosurgery Services in Perth, Western Australia to send trainees there to train under the Neurosurgery Training Programme of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.