As I write my final Oncology Issues column as ACCC President, I find myself reflecting not only on the past 18 months, but also on the extraordinary moment in ACCC’s history that we have experienced together. Throughout my presidency, I have returned again and again to our thoughtfully constructed Mission, Core Values, and Strategic Objectives:
Serving as President of ACCC has been one of the greatest honors of my professional career. I assumed this role at a time of significant change—both across cancer care and within our own organization. Throughout this period, ACCC has continued to advance its mission while undertaking a consequential transition from a managed organization to an independent, stand-alone association.
Transitions of this magnitude are rarely simple. They require courage, thoughtful decision-making, transparency, and an unwavering commitment to mission. They also require trust: trust in one another, trust in the organization’s leadership, and trust in the strength of the community we have built.
Over the past 18 months, I have witnessed the strength of that trust firsthand. Our Board, staff, members, partners, and the broader oncology community approached this transition with determination and a shared understanding that ACCC’s mission is the beacon and must remain at the center of every decision. Together, we navigated uncertainty, asked difficult questions, preserved what has always made ACCC distinctive, and began building the infrastructure needed to support the organization’s next chapter.
Becoming an independent organization is far more than an operational or structural change. It is an opportunity for ACCC to define its future with greater clarity and intention. Independence gives ACCC the ability to become even more responsive to the rapidly changing needs of multidisciplinary cancer care teams. It positions us to strengthen our identity, deepen our relationships with members, explore new partnerships, and invest strategically in programs that address the most pressing challenges facing cancer programs and practices.
Most importantly, independence allows ACCC to remain focused on what it does best: bringing together the entire cancer care team to share knowledge, solve problems, and improve care for patients and their families.
During my presidency, my theme—Designing Oncology Care to Meet the Needs of a Growing Patient Population—focused on four interconnected priorities: empowering and enabling the workforce, building capacity at scale, using technology as a workforce multiplier, and optimizing oncology service line structures.
These priorities remain urgent. The number of people living with and beyond cancer continues to grow, while oncology programs face persistent workforce shortages, increasing clinical complexity, financial pressures, and growing demands for access. At the same time, advances in science, digital health, artificial intelligence, precision medicine, and care delivery are creating possibilities that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago.
Meeting this moment will require more than incremental change. It will require us to redesign how cancer care is delivered and to ensure that innovation strengthens—not replaces—the human relationships at the heart of oncology.
As a stand-alone organization, ACCC can amplify the voices of its members and create new opportunities for multidisciplinary collaboration. It can move with agility as emerging challenges arise, develop education and resources tailored to the realities of community-based cancer care, and advocate for policies that support equitable access, sustainable care delivery, and a strong oncology workforce.
This transition also creates an opportunity to examine how we engage the next generation of oncology professionals. The future of cancer care depends on our ability to recruit, develop, mentor, and retain talented individuals across every discipline. We must create environments in which professionals feel valued, supported, and prepared to lead. We must also ensure that clinicians have the tools and technology they need to practice at the top of their license while preserving and cultivating the compassion and connection our patients deserve.
Throughout my term, I have been continually inspired by the resilience of ACCC members. Across the country, cancer programs are redesigning workflows, expanding navigation, strengthening supportive care, developing new workforce models, adopting technology, and finding creative ways to reach patients who have historically faced barriers to care. ACCC provides the forum where these solutions can be shared, tested, refined, and scaled. Every ACCC conference we attend brings home the “how-to” knowledge that translates ideas into action. That is the power of this organization: No cancer program needs to solve all of today’s challenges alone.
As ACCC moves forward, we honor the organization’s history while remaining committed to evolving. Independence does not change who we are. It gives us greater ownership of who we will become.
The road ahead will require continued discipline, collaboration, and thoughtful stewardship. There will be challenges, as there are with every major transformation. But I leave this role with great confidence—not because the work is finished, but because I have seen the commitment, expertise, and resilience of the people who will carry it forward.
I am deeply grateful to the ACCC Board of Trustees, our exceptional staff, our members, our partners, and every member of the multidisciplinary cancer care team who has contributed to this journey. Thank you for your trust, your candor, and your willingness to imagine what is possible. Thank you for keeping patients and their families at the center of our work. And thank you for giving me the privilege of serving as your President during such a defining period.
Although this is my final column as President, it is not a farewell. I remain committed to ACCC, to our members, and to the future of cancer care. We have spent the past 18 months navigating change. Now, we can transform that change into lasting impact.
ACCC’s next chapter is ours to write, and I believe its strongest years are still ahead.
