Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Dr Francis Seow Choen

Insect species named after Xiao (Seow) family?.


Dr Seow-Choen has discovered and described many new phasmid species from Singapore, Malaysia and China. He has published 32 papers on phasmids. Because of his prolific work, the notable phasmid expert Paul Brock named a rare and beautiful species Loxopsis seowi from Malaysia in his honor. He also currently keeps hundreds of live specimens belonging to dozens of species at home.


Wha, insect also with surname of Seow......


Dr Francis Seow recently wrote a book,with the details below:-

A Pocket Guide: Phasmids of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore

















Although phasmids are found in almost all tropical forests, not much was known about them until recently. Over the last 25 years, the Phasmid Study Group (popularly known as PSG) has become an important group, with its members actively studying and identifying specimens of such insects. The author has been researching and photographing these insects for many years. Here in this book, the best photographs have been selected to enable readers to identify insects from West Malaysia and Singapore with relative ease. Breeding is also simplified by the listing of known food plants. This excellent book is essential for all who are interested in the natural history of Southeast Asia.

Author(s): Francis Seow-Choen

Dr Francis Seow-Choen F.R.E.S. is by profession a senior consultant colorectal surgeon. However, In spite of his very busy professional schedule, he is also a very committed amateur naturalist. He has been avidly interested in natural history all his life. During his schooldays, weekends were spent at the Raffles Museum or the Johor Zoo sketching animals. Before and after school he would look for all sorts of animals in the fields and swamps around the Kallang River in Singapore.

Dr Seow-Choen first started rearing phasmids as a young boy—a popular hobby then as phasmid droppings were used as a type of Chinese remedy. He started serious phasmid research in 1990 as a result of encountering phasmids in Malaysian forests and not being able to find adequate information on their biology. Since then he has collected phasmids both from Southeast Asia and other countries around the world.

Dr Seow-Choen has discovered and described many new phasmid species from Singapore, Malaysia and China. He has published 32 papers on phasmids and this is his third book on these insects. Because of his prolific work, the notable phasmid expert Paul Brock named a rare and beautiful species Loxopsis seowi from Malaysia in his honour. He also currently keeps hundreds of live specimens belonging to dozens of species at home.

Publisher: Natural History Publications (Borneo)

First Published: November 2005

No. of Pages: vi + 120 pp.

Size: 11.5 x 17 cm (Softcover)

ISBN: 983-812-109-6

Cover: SB

Price: US $10.00

Weight: 30g


We are very proud of Dr Francis Seow, that even insect carry the family name of Xiao. If you are interested in nature, please support his book.




ABOUT DOCTOR SEOW CHOEN background in Medicine

Dr Seow-Choen graduated from the National University of Singapore in 1981 and obtained his higher surgical qualifications in 1987. He subsequently sub-specialized in colorectal surgery in 1989 where he worked with the world class surgeons of St Marks’ Hospital in London. At that time, there were no specialized departments of colorectal surgery in this part of the world. Dr Seow-Choen returned to Singapore after training intent on turning Singapore into a surgical colorectal powerhouse. In his first year, he helped establish the first colorectal surgery department in Asia which offered patients the latest surgical techniques at the Singapore General Hospital.

Fifteen years later, Dr Seow-Choen has firmly established his name in the field of colorectal surgery. Dr Seow-Choen is extremely well known and travels extensively around the world lecturing and operating. In 1993 he was awarded the first American Society of Colon and Rectum Surgeons International Travelling Fellowship. In 1994, he was invited as the W Wallace Green lecturer for the St Luke’s Hospital Foundation in Kansas to lecture on the treatment of Rectal Cancer and the use of the Colonic pouch. In 1999, he was also the first Asian to be invited as the ESR Hughes Lecturer for the Royal Australian College of Surgeons and in 2004 he was the first Asian to be the Rupert B Turnbull Memorial Lecturer for the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, USA. Further honors came in 2005 where he was again the first Asian to be invited as the Philip Gordon lecturer for the Canadian Colorectal Society.

Dr Seow-Choen was conferred Honorary Life Member of the Colorectal Surgical Society of Australia (1999) and Honorary Member of the Section of Colon and Rectal Surgery, Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (1999). He was made a Member of Honor in 2008 by the Israel Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons.

Prof Seow-Choen's distinguished achievements can be seen by his appointments to the Editorial Boards of many prestigious journals including, Diseases of the Colon and Rectum (USA), Colorectal Disease (European), British Journal of Surgery (UK), Techniques in Coloproctology (Italian-co-editor), Indian Journal of Coloproctology (Indian), Digestive Surgery (Germany), Chinese Journal of Coloproctology (Zhongguo gangchangbing zazhi) PRC-dy chairman, Journal of Surgical Oncology (USA) "the BMC journal" and the World Journal of Gastroenterology. He has published 30 chapters in surgical textbooks and more than 235 original articles in peer reviewed surgical journals.

Besides his very busy professional life, Dr Seow-Choen had also taken an interest in the development of colorectal surgery in the whole of Asia. He is frequently invited to lecture and to demonstrate surgery all around over the world and Asia including USA, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Indian, Pakistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysian and Indonesia. He is frequently consulted by surgeons from all over the world with regards to difficult cases as to the best method of handling these. It is no surprise therefore he was the President of the Asian Federation of Coloproctology (2005 - 2007) and the President of the Society of Colorectal Surgeons of Singapore (2005 - 2007). His achievements in the field of Coloproctology was recognized by the conferment on him of the Excellence for Singapore Award in 2000. He is currently the President of the Eurasian (European-Asian) Colorectal Technology Association. This association aims to bring Asian and Europe closer together and learn from each other in matters relating to colorectal surgery.

Dr Seow-Choen believes that he had accomplished a lot in making a name for Singapore as a leading medical care provider in part because of the better way in which he doing surgery and because it was making an impact around the colorectal world.

“Surgery is not just science. Surgery is an art. One can learn about science from courses, conferences and book. In art, one has to have talent first and then seek out a master who can bring that skill to perfection.”
- Prof Seow-Choen

(source: http://www.colorectalcentre.com/eng/abt_dr.htm)

Is Dr Seow a teochew from Chaoyang?

Related article:
1.
news.sma.org.sg/3908/Whats_Up_Doc.pdf



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