Dr Rebecca Heywood

Education and Training

Dr Rebecca Heywood graduated from the University of Manchester, UK in 1998. She completed her postgraduate surgical training in London, training at The Royal National Throat, Nose & Ear Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital, The Royal Marsden Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

During her training she completed clinical attachments in Otology and Skull Base surgery at the Causse Clinic in Beziers, France, and the House Ear Clinic in Los Angeles. She underwent subspecialty fellowship training at the Ear Science Institute Australia and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Australia from 2014 to 2015. Here she refined her skills in surgery of the ear and skull base, performing many middle ear, cochlear and other hearing implant and acoustic neuroma operations.

Dr Rebecca worked in Singapore’s public hospitals as a Consultant Otologist & Neurotologist from 2015 to 2021 and has been in private practice since 2022. She continues to run Otology clinics and perform surgery as a Visiting Consultant at Sengkang General Hospital.

After moving to Singapore in 2015, she co-founded the hearing implant programmes at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and Sengkang General Hospital. She was Director of Jurong Health Hearing Implant Fund from 2018 to 2020 and has been an expert advisor on the provision of cochlear, middle ear and bone conduction implants. She remains an active member of the Ear Science Institute Australia hearing implant multidisciplinary team meeting (MDT). Dr Rebecca has previously contributed to World Health Organisation workshops on ear and hearing care in the Western Pacific region. She volunteers her time and surgical expertise to charitable causes. This has included performing ear surgery at the Children’s Surgical Hospital, Cambodia, running ear clinics in remote Aboriginal communities and promoting ear and hearing health community events in Singapore.

Research and Teaching

Dr Rebecca is currently an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia and Honorary Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the Ear Science Institute Australia. She previously held the position of Clinical Assistant Professor at SingHealth Duke-NUS Surgery Academic Clinical Programme.

Dr Rebecca’s interest in research was sparked as an undergraduate when she worked on the development of in-vitro culture of dendritic cells from haemopoietic stem cells at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in Manchester, UK.

In 2016 she was awarded grant funding to investigate the link between hearing loss and dementia in the ageing population in Singapore and led a research team spanning five institutions in Singapore, Australia (Ear Science Institute Australia) and the USA (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health). Her research has been widely reported in the media. She is also involved in clinical research on cochlear implantation and other auditory implants.

Dr Rebecca has held expert faculty positions teaching ENT, otology and skull base surgery both locally and internationally.

Languages spoken

English, French.

Qualifications

MB ChB (Manchester)
MRCS (Edinburgh)
DO-HNS (England)
FRCS (ORL-HNS) (Edinburgh)
FAMS

Further information: www.drrebeccaheywood.com