About Associate Professor Dennis Thiam Leong Wong
Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, Cardiac CT and MRI specialist
BSc (Med), MBBS (Hons), MD, Ph.D., FRACP, FCSANZ, FSCCT, FSCMR, FESC
Dennis Wong is a consultant cardiologist at the Victorian Heart Hospital, with private practice at Jessie McPherson Private Hospital and Mulgrave Private Hospital. He sees patients across the full range of adult cardiology, including chest pain, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease, hypertension, and preventive cardiology.
His approach is straightforward: treat the patient, not the scan or the artery. Subspecialty skills matter, but only after careful history, examination, and an honest conversation about what the patient actually needs.
Clinical expertise
Dennis has advanced training in three areas:
- Complex coronary intervention, including coronary stenting guided by intravascular imaging (IVUS, OCT) and coronary physiology to make sure stents are placed only when they will help.
- Cardiac CT, for non-invasive assessment of chest pain, coronary artery disease, and cardiovascular risk.
- Cardiac MRI, for detailed assessment of heart muscle disease, cardiomyopathy, and unexplained cardiac symptoms.
He completed his medical degree with Honours at the University of New South Wales in 2003, physician and cardiology training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and a two-year interventional fellowship at MonashHeart. He also holds a PhD in cardiac MRI and a Doctor of Medicine in cardiac CT. His PhD received the Dean’s Commendation for Thesis Excellence from the University of Adelaide.
From 2010 to 2020, Dennis provided visiting cardiology services to Mildura, supporting patients in regional Victoria who would otherwise have travelled to Melbourne for care. In 2015 he established the cardiac CT service in Mildura, which he continues to lead, giving regional patients ongoing access to advanced cardiac imaging close to home.
Research and academic work
Dennis is an Associate Professor at Monash University and University of Adelaide. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, the European Society of Cardiology, the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, and the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance. He has published more than 130 peer-reviewed papers, including in The Lancet, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging and European Heart Journal.
His earlier research helped advance cardiac CT assessment of coronary plaque, coronary inflammation, and non-invasive risk prediction. His current work focuses on coronary microvascular dysfunction — a common but underdiagnosed cause of chest pain in patients with normal-appearing coronary arteries — using cardiac CT and angiography-derived techniques to improve how it is diagnosed and treated.
In 2013 he was awarded the Ralph Reader Prize, the highest research honour for early-career cardiology researchers in Australia and New Zealand. He has held competitive research fellowships from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the National Heart Foundation across three career stages — Postgraduate, Postdoctoral, Early Career, and Future Leader — reflecting sustained funding success from doctoral training through to his current role as a senior clinical academic. He supervises PhD candidates and early-career researchers, and has served on the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography Guidelines Committee.
Languages
English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, and Malay.
Outside medicine
Married with three children. Plays badminton and social soccer when his hamstrings allow. Supports Liverpool FC, with the resignation that comes from decades of practice.
