Tripod Dental Clinic was started by three good friends — Dr Chow Wai Kit, Dr Loke Shu Yi and Dr Low Li Yong — who wanted to provide good quality, ethical and affordable dental care. The name reflects their three core values of Empathy, Integrity and Sincerity, because a tripod is known to be stable, just like the values the clinic stands on. From their cozy boutique clinic near Kallang MRT, the team strives to deliver the highest quality personalised dental services, treating every patient with the same warmth they would extend to members of their own family.
The doctors bring impressive public-service pedigrees, with years of experience from NHG Polyclinics, the Health Promotion Board, the National Dental Centre, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital and SAF dental centres. The team includes a dedicated orthodontist, Dr Goh Aik Wei, who also serves at KKH's Cleft and Craniofacial Centre, and accredited Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon Dr Chew Bertrand, a UCLA-trained implantologist.
Services span the full spectrum of dentistry: examinations, scaling and polishing, fillings and extractions; digital X-rays; whitening, veneers and smile make-overs; root canal treatment; dentures, crowns, bridges and implants; wisdom tooth surgery; metal and ceramic braces and Invisalign; children's dentistry; and dental sleep medicine such as night guards.
The clinic is a participating CHAS and Pioneer Generation clinic and is Medisave-accredited with no administrative fee for processing claims. Records are fully electronic and shared between the Kallang and Circuit Road branches, so your care continues wherever you visit.
Tripod Dental Clinic began the way many good things do: with three friends and a shared conviction. Dr Chow Wai Kit, Dr Loke Shu Yi and Dr Low Li Yong — all graduates of the National University of Singapore's Faculty of Dentistry — wanted to build a practice offering good quality, ethical and affordable dental care. They named it Tripod after their three core values, Empathy, Integrity and Sincerity, because a tripod is known to be stable, just like the principles the clinic stands on. The Latin phrase they love, *omne trium perfectum* — everything that comes in threes is perfect — sums up the philosophy neatly.
What genuinely distinguishes this clinic is the depth of its doctors' public-sector experience. Before opening Tripod, the founders logged years at institutions patients usually associate with complex care: National Healthcare Group Polyclinics, the Health Promotion Board's school dental service, the National Dental Centre's Prosthodontics Department, National University Hospital, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital and SAF dental centres, where several served as Dental Officers-in-Charge.
The team has since grown to include Dr Samantha Yeo, whose rotations spanned KK Women's and Children's Hospital and Khoo Teck Puat Hospital; Dr Nicole Lee, who can chat with patients in Hokkien and Teochew; Dr Ellice Goh, who once led clinical operations as Dental Officer-in-Charge at Nee Soon Camp; and Dr Lee Li Xuan, with paediatric and oral surgery postings behind her. Two names add specialist heft: Dr Goh Aik Wei, a trained orthodontist who also serves at KKH's Cleft and Craniofacial Centre, and Dr Chew Shen Hui Bertrand, an accredited Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon with a UCLA fellowship in implantology and years as a senior hospital consultant.
For patients, that translates into something practical: most dental needs can be handled under one roof, by dentists who have seen it all in tertiary institutions.
The service list covers the full spectrum of everyday dentistry and beyond. Routine care includes dental examinations, scaling and polishing, airflow polishing for heavy stains, fluoride treatment, fillings and extractions, all backed by digital radiography — intra-oral X-rays, OPGs and lateral cephalometric radiographs.
Aesthetic options range from whitening (customised take-home bleaching kits or chair-side bleaching) to veneers and full smile make-overs. For troublesome teeth there is root canal treatment, cracked tooth management, and wisdom tooth extraction or surgery — a particular interest of Dr Low's. Missing teeth can be restored with dentures in acrylic, cobalt-chrome or flexible forms, crowns and bridges, or implants. Children get their own gentle track of prophylaxis, fillings, pulp treatment and sealants, and the clinic even practises dental sleep medicine, offering occlusal splints and night guards and care for sleep apnea.
The founders set out with three criteria for making appointments pleasant. First, technology: modern, high-quality equipment for accurate diagnosis, and fully electronic dental and imaging records accessible from both clinics, so there is continuity of care. Second, hygiene: instruments and equipment disinfected and sterilised to the strictest standards, with disposables used wherever possible. Third, comfort: a cozy, homely clinic the team personally designed and decorated, where laughter is considered the best medicine.
The Kallang branch — the group's first — sits a stone's throw from Kallang MRT, which makes slipping in an appointment refreshingly painless. Its sister branch next to the ever-popular Blk 79 Circuit Road Hawker Centre serves the other neighbourhood the team calls home.
Tripod Dental is a participating CHAS clinic, so Singapore Citizens from lower and middle-income households can receive subsidies for dental treatment — simply present a valid Health Assist card and NRIC when registering. Pioneer Generation cardholders receive subsidies too, and cardholders below 21 should bring a parent or legal guardian on their first visit. The clinic is also Medisave-accredited with the CPF Board and Ministry of Health, so you can use Medisave for approved dental procedures for yourself or immediate family members, with no administrative fee for processing the claims.
That family spirit runs through everything. Dr Low volunteers at a clinic serving less privileged patients, Dr Chew joins overseas mission trips, and the doctors converse in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew and Bahasa Melayu. In time, the team hopes, patients stop being patients and become part of the friendly, family-like Tripod Dental community. As the Mother Theresa quote on their homepage puts it: “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”