Dr. Chen was born in Yangmei District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan in 1972 and graduated from National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University School of Medicine in 1999. He then completed his surgical residency training at Taipei Veterans General Hospital and Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center (KFSYSCC) before further completing subspecialty training in Colorectal Surgery. Since completion of subspecialty training in July 2004, Dr. Chen has been an Attending Colorectal Surgeon at KFSYSCC. He is currently both deputy chief in the Department of Surgery and chairperson of the multidisciplinary colorectal cancer committee.
Dr. Chen's first stride in the field of Colorectal Surgery was his increased utilization of abdominal laparoscopy, alongside development of an enhanced postoperative recovery program, in 2007. In 2009, he completed an advanced laparoscopy observership under the tutelage of Dr. Jeffrey Milsom at Weill-Cornell Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. In 2009, Dr. Chen began implementing single-incision abdominal laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery (SILS) into his practice, and said method has since then become a standard of care at KFSYSCC.
After more than six months of preparation and advanced education, Dr. Chen successfully completed his personal first case of transanal total mesorectal excision (TaTME) in May of 2013. Since that time, he has intensely dedicated his practice to the advancement of this field. His experiences led to the publication of the first case series regarding TaTME originating from Asia in Surgical Endoscopy in 2015. This was then followed by the publication of a case-matched analysis comparing traditional laparoscopic TME to TaTME for rectal cancer patients who had undergone neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy in Annals of Surgical Oncology. In 2016, Dr. Chen coordinated the first TaTME workshop in Taiwan, followed in 2017 by two cadaver hand-on sessions. He also presented a 120-patient TaTME case mid-term survival summary at the 2017 European Association of Endosopic Surgery Annual Meeting (EAES). Beginning in 2018, Dr. Chen was invited to present and as a trainer in standardized TaTME training sessions in Beijing, Singapore, Netherland and other various cities. Furthermore, he also led KFSYSCC as the first Asian center in recruitment into COLOR III trial, a multinational randomized clinical trial comparing TaTME to traditional laparoscopic TME.
More recently, Dr. Chen has also delved into robotics-assisted surgery for Colorectal Cancer, fusing robotics-arm utilization in various surgical scenarios. Articles regarding these experiences have been published various international journals. Until 2024, Dr. Chen had performed over 650 robotic-assisted colorectal surgeries, and organized over 10 workshops for advanced robotic surgical techniques.
Since 2005, Dr. Chen has also been a Taiwan Ministry of Education approved lecturer, lecturing in the field of Surgery at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University School of Medicine. He also took on an analytics role at the Taiwan National Cancer Registry in 2008 and has since then generated annual reports. In 2011, he was appointed to the Taiwan National Health Research Institutes Colorectal Cancer Committee and has played key roles in guiding research that has ultimately determined colorectal cancer treatment quality indicators for the nation. He represents the committee to have the presentation about national cancer registration data analysis in many local and international conferences. Dr. Chen also received appointment as an instructor of Surgical Oncology to the Taiwan Oncology society in 2012, followed by elected as a board member at the Taiwan Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons in 2018. He was appointed member of editorial board for the Asian Journal of Surgery in 2019.
Currently, Dr. Chen is one of the two instructors in Taiwan certified by the robotic surgical equipment manufacturer Intuitive. Since 2021, he has organized over 20 advanced robotic surgery training workshops. Additionally, he represents the Taiwan Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons in communications with the National Health Insurance Administration regarding reimbursement issues. He also participates in formulating certification criteria and training for robotic surgery physicians. As of 2023, Dr. Chen has published over 25 professional papers and given more than 250 presentations at local and international professional conferences.