The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, also known as the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute and commonly abbreviated as Peter Mac, is an Australian oncology research

institute An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

cancer treatment Cancer treatments are a wide range of treatments available for the many different types of cancer, with each cancer type needing its own specific treatment. Treatments can include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, targ ...

and professional

oncologist Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''� ...

training centre located in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

. The centre is named in honour of Sir

Peter MacCallum Sir Peter MacCallum (14 July 1885 – 4 March 1974) was a Scottish-born Australian oncologist and the co-founder and eponym of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. Background and early life Peter MacCallum was born in Glasgow, ...

. Since June 2016, the centre has been located within the

Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) is a multi-site, multi-disciplinary specialist cancer hospital and research centre located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The VCCC comprises an alliance between The University of Melbourne, the ...

(VCCC) in . The centre is Australia's first

public hospital A public hospital, or government hospital, is a hospital which is government owned and is predominantly funded by the government and operates predominantly off the money that is collected from taxpayers to fund healthcare initiatives. In almost al ...

dedicated to cancer treatment, research and education. Research programs at the centre include the

Australian Cancer Research Foundation The Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) is an Australian not-for-profit organisation which funds research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all types of cancer. It provides multimillion-dollar grants for high-end research equ ...

(ACRF) Cancer Cell Biology Program and the ACRF Victorian Centre for Functional Genomics in Cancer.

History

In 1949, the Victorian Cancer Institute was established and the following year its outpatient services were named the "Peter MacCallum Clinic". It was named after the (then) dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Melbourne University, Peter MacCallum who, with Rutherford Kaye-Scott, had a significant role in its founding. 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 shoulder Adhesive capsulitis, also known as frozen shoulder, is a condition associated with shoulder pain and stiffness. It is a common shoulder ailment that is marked by pain and a loss of range of motion, particularly in external rotation. There is ...

keloid scars Keloid, also known as keloid disorder and keloidal scar, is the formation of a type of scar which, depending on its maturity, is composed mainly of either type III (early) or type I (late) collagen. It is a result of an overgrowth of granulation t ...

and also to provide a valuable and non-invasive means for medical sterilisation, the name "Peter MacCallum Clinic" was considered less threatening because the clinic could be positioned as a specialist radiotherapeutic centre rather than it being thought of as a dedicated cancer hospital. The clinic was originally located in a single room of the

Queen Victoria Hospital The Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH), located in East Grinstead, West Sussex, England is the specialist reconstructive surgery centre for the south east of England, and also provides services at clinics across the region. It has become world-famo ...

in central Melbourne. Its main facility was based at the corner

William William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...

and Little Lonsdale streets, near

Flagstaff Gardens Flagstaff Gardens is the oldest park in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, first established in 1862. Today it is one of the most visited and widely used parks in the city by residents, nearby office workers and tourists. The gardens are notable ...

where the

County Court of Victoria The County Court of Victoria is the intermediate court in the Australian state of Victoria. It is equivalent to district courts in the other states. The County Court is the principal trial court in the state, having a broad criminal and ci ...

buildings were later built. (The site was also at one time home to the Jessie McPherson Private Hospital.) The Institute established Australia's first training school for radiotherapists. In 1986, the institute (and the clinic) were collectively renamed as the "Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute". By 1994, the institute was operating out of 11 sites across Melbourne. At this time, it moved into St Andrew's Hospital in

East Melbourne East Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne local government area. East Melbourne recorded a population of 4,896 at the 2021 ce ...

, having been purchased from the

Uniting Church of Australia The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) is a united church in Australia. The church was founded on 22 June 1977 when most Wiktionary:congregation, congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church o ...

and

Presbyterian Church of Victoria __NOTOC__ The Presbyterian Church of Victoria is one of the constituent churches of the Presbyterian Church of Australia. It was established in 1859 as a union of Church of Scotland, Free Presbyterian and United Presbyterian congregations. The ...

by the state government in 1990.

Achievements

The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre is ranked 14th in the

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

2024 World’s Best Specialised Hospitals. The Newsweek rankings, in partnership with global research company

Statista Statista (styled in all lower case) is a German online platform that specializes in data gathering and visualization. In addition to publicly available third-party data, Statista also provides exclusive data via the platform, which is collect ...

, ranked Peter Mac alongside 1500 other specialised hospitals in oncology, cardiology, gastroenterology, neurology, obstetrics, paediatrics and more. Peter Mac was the only Australian hospital to be listed in the top 100 worldwide.

Location

In June 2016, the institute moved to the purpose-built building at the entrance to Melbourne's Parkville bio-medical precinct, located at 305 Grattan Street, Melbourne, with satellite services at the Bendigo Base Hospital, Epworth Eastern, the

Monash Medical Centre Monash Medical Centre (MMC) is a teaching hospital in Melbourne, Australia. It provides specialist tertiary-level healthcare to Melbourne's south-east. Monash Medical Centre is part of Monash Health, the largest public health service in Victori ...

(

Moorabbin Moorabbin is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 15 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Kingston local government area. Moorabbin recorded a population of 6,287 at the . Most of the e ...

campus in East Bentleigh) and Sunshine Hospital in

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

. It involves some shared services with the nearby

Royal Melbourne Hospital The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH), located in Parkville, Victoria, an inner suburb of Melbourne, is one of Australia's leading public hospitals. It is a major teaching hospital for tertiary health care with a reputation in clinical research. Th ...

, the

Royal Women's Hospital The Royal Women's Hospital, located in the Melbourne suburb of Parkville, is Australia's oldest specialist women's hospital. It offers a full range of services in maternity, gynaecology, neonatal care, women's cancers and women's health. It also ...

and the

Royal Children's Hospital The Royal Children's Hospital (RCH), colloquially referred to as the Royal Children's, is a major children's hospital in Parkville, Victoria, Parkville, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Regarded as one of the great C ...

. Its current site was previously home to the

Royal Dental Hospital The Royal Dental Hospital was a dental hospital in Leicester Square, London, which operated from 1858 until 1985. In 1859, it opened the London School of Dental Surgery, later renamed to the Royal Dental Hospital of London School of Dental Surge ...

. The $1 billion cancer treatment and research centre was designed by architects from Silver Thomas Hanley, DesignInc and McBride Charles Ryan.

Notable staff

* Sarah-Jane Dawson * Upulie Divisekera * Declan G. Murphy * Maxine Morand

References

External links