The Peter Mac is located within the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre building, pictured in 2016
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Founder(s) |
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Established | 27 April 1949 |
Mission | Medical research, patient care, education |
Focus | Oncology research and cancer treatment |
Chairman | The Hon. Maxine Morand |
Chief Executive | Dale Fisher |
Formerly called |
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Location | 305 Grattan Street, Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
Coordinates | 37°48′41.39″S 144°58′38.1″E / 37.8114972°S 144.977250°ECoordinates: 37°48′41.39″S 144°58′38.1″E / 37.8114972°S 144.977250°E |
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.
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.
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.