15 minute interview: The neurosurgeon who separates Siamese twins

Professor Keith Goh qualified from the National University of Singapore Medical School in 1985. After completing his basic surgical training, he moved to Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong in 1992 to specialise in neurosurgery. He later took up a clinical training fellowship at the Beth Israel Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery in New York, where he specialised in paediatric neurosurgery. Keith Goh and his wife returned home to Singapore in 1999, and two years later headed the first of three operations to separate conjoined twins. The second of these was unprecedented in that it involved an adult pair. Laleh and Ladan Bijani were 29 at the time, and their story captured the imagination not just of Singaporeans but of the whole world.1 Unfortunately, they died during the operation. Professor Goh is currently working in Hong Kong.