Dr Somasundaram Subramaniam

Dr Soma Subramaniam is an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist and surgeon at Parkway East Hospital, Singapore.

His specialty is in primary and revision endoscopic sinus-related surgery, and ambulatory ENT allergy diagnosis and treatment. His other areas of expertise include sialendoscopy and thyroid surgery.

He was the inaugural clinical director and ENT senior consultant at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH), Jurong Medical Centre and Jurong Community Hospital.

Dr Soma graduated from the National University of Ireland and underwent postgraduate ENT training in Singapore. He received the Health Manpower Development Plan Award to pursue a one-year clinical fellowship at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Centre, James Cancer Centre and Solove Research Institute. During this period, he gained clinical and academic exposure to various aspects of advanced sinus-related, as well as head and neck tumour-related pathology, with a special emphasis on endoscopic endonasal approaches to nasal and skull base tumours. He also had the opportunity to spend time at the dedicated ENT allergy service, managing patients with ENT-related allergy.

At NTFGH, he set up the hospital’s multi-disciplinary skull base team with the neurosurgery service to perform various endoscopic skull base procedures. He was also part of the ENT team that performed the first five cases of minimal-access endoscopic transaxillary thyroid surgery at NTFGH, as well as the earliest transoral endoscopic thyroid surgery performed in at the National University Health Services (NUHS). He has been practising medicine for more than 20 years.

Besides his clinical work, Dr Soma was the associate programme director of NUHS’ otolaryngology residency programme. He then took over as the undergraduate director for the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s ENT curriculum. He is currently an adjunct assistant professor at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He is also the president of the ASEAN Rhinologic Society.

Dr Soma has been involved in various clinical research projects, focused on sinus and skull base diseases, salivary gland disorders and nasal allergy. He has presented numerous research papers at international meetings, published papers in peer-reviewed medical journals and co-authored several book chapters in ENT textbooks.

He received several service quality awards at NTFGH.