Puneet Varma (Editor)

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

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Chairman
  
The Hon. Maxine Morand

Phone
  
+61 3 8559 5000

Chief Executive
  
Dale Fisher

Founded
  
1950

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Established
  
27 April 1949; 67 years ago (1949-04-27)

Mission
  
Medical research, patient care, education

Focus
  
Oncology research and cancer treatment

Formerly called
  
Victorian Cancer Institute; Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute

Address
  
305 Grattan St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

Founders
  
Peter MacCallum, Rutherford Kaye-Scott

Similar
  
St Vincent's Hospital - Melbourne, Austin Hospital - Melbourne, St Vincent's Private Hospital, Mercy Hospital for Women, St Vincent's Hospital - Sydney

Profiles

Peter maccallum cancer centre appreciation garden


The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, also known as the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute and commonly abbreviated as the Peter Mac, is an Australian oncology research institute, cancer treatment, and professional oncologist training centre located in Melbourne, Victoria. The Centre is named in honour of Sir Peter MacCallum. Since June 2016, the Peter Mac has been located within the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) in Parkville.

Contents

Together with the VCCC, the Peter Mac is Australia’s only public hospital dedicated to cancer treatment, research and education. It is also one of the few cancer treatment facilities in the world which has a fully integrated clinical and laboratory program situated alongside a hospital. This co-location facilitates the translation of research findings into clinical outcomes within the single site.

Research programs at the centre include the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) Cancer Cell Biology Program and the ACRF Victorian Centre for Functional Genomics in Cancer.

The Peter Mac offers much in the way of integrated services, including medical oncology and radiation oncology facilities and links with allied health services such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, speech therapy and social services.

History

The Victorian Cancer Institute's cancer hospital was given the title Peter MacCallum Clinic after the (then) dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Melbourne University, Peter MacCallum, who along with Rutherford Kaye-Scott had a significant role in its founding in 1949. At the time it was a common practice not to inform patients that they had cancer. It was thought that because radiotherapy was also quite commonly used at that time to treat non-cancerous conditions such as severe acne, "strawberry birthmarks", frozen shoulders, keloid scars and also to provide a valuable and non-invasive means for medical sterilisation, the name "Peter MacCallum Clinic" would be much less threatening because the clinic could be positioned as a specialist radiotherapeutic centre rather than it being thought of as a dedicated cancer hospital. In 1986, the clinic was renamed as the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute.

Location

Situated within Parkville Biomedical Precinct, the Peter Mac's Melbourne centre is housed within the VCCC building located at 305 Grattan Street, Melbourne, with satellite services at the Bendigo Base Hospital, Epworth Eastern, the Monash Medical Centre (Moorabbin campus in East Bentleigh) and Sunshine Hospital in St Albans. Prior to its relocation to this site in June 2016, the Peter Mac was located for 22 years in East Melbourne in the former St Andrew's Hospital, a maternity hospital which was run by the Presbyterian Church. Prior to 1994, the then Peter MacCallum Clinic was located at the corner of William Street and Little Lonsdale Street.

Today the Peter Mac comprises a sprawling biomedical precinct involving some shared services with the nearby Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Royal Women's Hospital and the Royal Children's Hospital.

References

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre Wikipedia