Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
hospital in Australia
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, 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 centre has been located within the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) in Parkville.
The centre is Australia's first public hospital dedicated to cancer treatment, research and education.
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.
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 shoulders, keloid scars 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 in central Melbourne.
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