Prof Seow 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. Prof Seow 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.

Prof Seow has firmly established his name in the field of colorectal surgery. Prof Seow 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.

Prof Seow 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 39 chapters in surgical textbooks and more than 261 original articles in peer reviewed surgical journals.

Besides his very busy professional life, Prof Seow 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 founding and current 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 the founding and current 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.

Prof Seow 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 is surgery and because it is making an impact around the colorectal world.