Mr Tan Arulampalam

Professor Tan Arulampalam has been a Consultant Colorectal Surgeon at Colchester Hospital (UK) with a passion for healthcare transformation through research and education. He has transitioned to a portfolio of private practice, medtech start ups and university academic work at the School of Medicine, Anglia Ruskin University. He helped establish The ICENI Centre (www.icenicentre.org) , a centre of excellence for training and research. Tan was formerly a Clinical Director and Lead in Process Re-engineering at Colchester Hospital, UK. He has extensive international experience in translational medical research, health system analysis, audit and higher educational supervision. His own research on PET imaging has translated into mainstream practice enabling earlier cancer detection and improved treatment outcomes.

Tan is on the faculty of the European Surgical Institute and Past President of the Association of Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, the UK’s premiere minimally invasive surgery society. His training experience spans many countries beyond Europe and North America, including the Middle East, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Korea and China. His major commitments included being a full board member of the European Association of Endoscopic Surgeons and chair of the EAES Research Committee (Demitted Office 2025).

He has published more that 50 peer reviewed papers and is joint editor of the textbook Essential Surgery published by Elsevier (7th Edition to be published in 2025). He was part of the ACPGBI group that published guidelines on Prevention, Detection and Management of Anastomotic Leak and is now part of the global collaborative on anastomotic leak (Cololeak). Tan also took part in the consensus group of the EAES publishing comprehensive guidelines on the management of diverticular disease (2018).

He is on the Medical Board of the charity Bowel Cancer UK and is focused on facilitating collaboration between surgical societies across the world, promoting sustainable surgery, surgeon wellbeing and adoption of novel medtech.

Tan is Immediate President of the Association of Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland and is focusing on sustainable surgical performance and data driven surgery. He plans commercialisation of a medtech device and development of a programme of surgical patient safety working with key stakeholders.