Al B. Benson III, MD, FACP, Becomes President of the Association of Community Cancer Centers
Rockville, MD, March 22, 2010 - Al B. Benson III, MD, FACP, became President of the Association of Community Cancer Centers at its 36th Annual Meeting on March 19, 2010. Dr. Benson is a professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Ill. He is also associate director for clinical investigations, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, at Northwestern.
“I am honored to serve as President of the Association of Community Cancer Centers,” said Dr. Benson. “During my year as ACCC President, I hope to give voice to the importance of putting comparative effectiveness research and evidence-based medicine into practice. ACCC needs to be at the table with other oncology organizations. Oncology must have a definitive voice in the comparative effectiveness debate and how it evolves.”
Dr. Benson has served on ACCC’s board of directors since 2003 and has been active on ACCC’s Strategic Planning Committee, Editorial Committee, New Technology Committee, Corporate Development Committee, Awards Committee, Bylaws Committee, Program Committee, and Membership Committee.
Dr. Benson was an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Illinois and co-medical director for the National Public Health Service in Champaign, Ill. He then served as a clinical oncology fellow at the University of Wisconsin Clinical Cancer Center, where he received an American Cancer Society Fellowship Award, prior to joining the faculty at Northwestern.
Dr. Benson’s research is primarily in the areas of gastrointestinal cancer clinical trials, cancer clinical trials, biologic therapies, Phase I cancer clinical trials, and cancer guideline development. He has authored or co-authored numerous reports, reviews, and book chapters focusing on these topics. His research in biologics, cancer therapy, and cancer prevention has been awarded funding from a variety of sources including the NIH. Dr. Benson has been honored with a number of awards, including most recently the ASCO Statesman Award and the Woman’s Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital Compassionate Care Award.
Dr. Benson has served on a number of committees for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and is currently a member of the Task Force on Quality of Cancer Care, and the co-chair of ASCO’s Colorectal Cancer Surveillance Guidelines Panel, the Stage II Colon Cancer Guidelines Panel and the RFA for colorectal cancer liver metastases panel. He is also the chair of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Gastrointestinal and Data Monitoring Committees. In addition, he is a member of several medical societies, and serves as past-president of the Illinois Medical Oncology Society, past-president of the International Society of GI Oncology, and is a member and immediate past-chair of the board of directors of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). He was recently appointed as a Scientific Advisory Board member of both the Patient Advocacy Foundation and the National Patient Advocacy Foundation.
He earned his medical degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo, following which he completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals.Since 1974, the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) has served as the leading national multidisciplinary organization that sets the standard for quality care for patients with cancer. ACCC is dedicated to promoting professional learning opportunities and to providing a forum for members to network and enhance their skills in the business, clinical and management aspects of care for the cancer community. Nearly 17,000 cancer care professionals from approximately 900 hospitals and more than 1,200 private practices are affiliated with ACCC. Our unique membership includes all members of the cancer care team: medical and radiation oncologists, surgeons, cancer program administrators and medical directors, pharmacists, oncology nurses, oncology social workers, and cancer program data managers. For more information, visit ACCC's website at www.accc-cancer.org. Follow us on Facebook and on ACCCBuzz, ACCC's online blog, www.acccbuzz.wordpress.com.
