• The Cancer Care Team Awards were announced on Sept. 8.
• Recipients are members of multidisciplinary care teams nominated by patients or relatives or survivors of patients.
• The top winner was the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

Health care providers from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Mexico earned international recognition this month for providing exceptional collaborative care to people living with lung cancer and thoracic malignancies. Winners were selected from a pool of nominees put forth by people who live with or have survived lung cancer, as well as their family members.

The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) announced the recipients of its Cancer Care Team Awards (CCTA) on Sept. 8. Recipients were announced during the IASLC 2021 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Denver.

This year’s overall winner was the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. The other award recipients were:

• UW Health Madison, based in Madison, Wisconsin
• Royal Marsden Hospital & Institute of Cancer Research, located in London
• Instituto Nacional de Cancerología (National Cancer Institute) in Mexico City

The best lung cancer care often involves the collaboration of multidisciplinary team members working together to address an individual’s unique needs and wishes. “Exceptional care for patients with lung cancer is not limited to interactions with any one specialist or care center,” the IASLC states on its website.

Drawing on this philosophy, the IASLC asks people living with lung cancer, lung cancer survivors, and family members to nominate up to six care team members — including oncologists, nurses, and palliative care providers — for the CCTA.

“They listen and solve the problem or come up with a solution, instead of just patting me on the back and telling me to just go home and live my life,” said Cindy Berndt, who nominated the cancer team at UW Health Madison. “If I get frustrated, they are always there for me.

The IASLC then selects winners from the pool of nominees based on criteria including shared decision-making, empathy, access to care, and patient support and survivorship. The organization selects recipients from four international regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia and the rest of the world. The IASLC past president then selects an overall winner (the CCTA’s top award) from among the four regional winners.

Learn more about the IASLC.