Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute

The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre is the major centre for cancer treatment, professional oncologist training, and oncology research in Australia.

Current location
It is situated in East Melbourne.

It operates from the site of the former St Andrew’s Hospital (that was run by the Presbyterian Church), to which the (then) Peter MacCallum Clinic (which was formerly at the corner of William Street and Little Lonsdale Street) moved in the 1990s.

Reason for relocation
The move to East Melbourne was forced upon the Peter MacCallum Clinic when it became apparent that the extreme variations in electric power quality (both "overvoltages" and "undervoltages") concomitant with the (new to Melbourne) underground railway trains arriving and leaving from the newly erected, adjacent Flagstaff railway station were causing significant fluctuations in the minute-to-minute dosage outputs of the variety of radiotherapeutic X-Ray machines that provided, perhaps, 80% of the Clinic's ongoing treatments.

These power fluctuations meant that it was almost impossible to accurately determine the precise amount of radiation that had been delivered by a particular treatment on a particular occasion.

The "Peter MacCallum Clinic"
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 those days (circa 1949) 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, non-invasive means for medical sterilization — the name “Peter MacCallum Clinic” would be much less threatening, due to the fact that the "Clinic" could be "positioned" as a specialist radiotherapeutic Centre, rather it being thought of as a dedicated cancer hospital.

Current status
It is one of the few cancer treatment facilities in the world that has a fully integrated clinical and laboratory program situated alongside a hospital. This facilitates the translation of research findings into clinical outcomes within the single site.

The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre 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, speech therapy and social services.

It also operates an oncology unit in Bendigo Base Hospital, and satellite radiation oncology centres at Monash (Moorabbin campus), Box Hill and Epworth (Richmond).