We are excited to communicate our work and goals with the very people we aim to benefit – the residents of the Atlantic Canada (and beyond).
In addition to circulating or Year End Report, we also published two articles in local media about how we formed and why, and what have we accomplished in such a short time (we were created in January 2024!).
Please take a look at these articles Here and here.
if you have any feedback or comment, we will be delighted to hear them. Please send your thoughts to savas{at}mun.ca or place them in the comment box below.
With our best wishes,
Sevtap Savas, PhD. Lead, ACC PAC May 8, 2024 St. John’s, NL
Honoured to receive this award together with other 8 awesome folks from Atlantic Canada!
Amazingly, one of these awesome winners is another Turkish immigrant woman Burcu Kaptan from Nova Scotia – congrats Burcu so well deserved and very proud of your accomplishments!
Thanks My east Coast Experience Media for awarding me this award – I had great time during our award gala on Friday Feb. 2nd, Halifax!
Thanks my family, friends, community, mentors, students, assistants, collaborators, and community partners for making my scholarly & community work possible.
I am hugely humbled – While this is not the first award/recognition I have received, it is the most meaningful.
There is a very strange pride coming from being recognized as an immigrant – it is an amazing feeling.
The fact that this award recognizes social responsibility, leadership, and contributions to the community is huge.
I am now more motivated than ever to advocate, engage with community, reach out to population, and do meaningful research on cancer.
Thank you Newfoundland and Labrador for adopting me and making me one of yours – I love it here and I love you all!
Community makes everything so much better. I could not be where I am now personally and professionally without you.
THANK YOU!
I will continue to support and contribute to Newfoundland and Labrador with my scholarly and community work as well as advocacy on cancer. Yes b’y!
Thank you Dr. Teri Stuckless for nominating me and thank you John King and Dr. Kara Laing for supporting my nomination!
We are pleased to let you know that we have started the process to formally start the Patient Advisory Committee of Atlantic Cancer Consortium!
Atlantic Cancer Consortium is a part of the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centre Networks led by the Terry Fox Research Institute. This consortium consists of a team of over 70 scientists, clinicians, staff, and trainees in Atlantic Canadian provinces.
The primary aim of the Cancer Centres Network is to advance the way to cancer cure via research (particularly focusing on Precision Medicine), collaboration, and training the next generation cancer researchers.
ACC PAC will be led by Sevtap Savas, PhD. Sevtap is a cancer scientist, patient advocate, and professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s, NL.
Hey folks, I made two presentations as part of the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology (CAPO) annual conference – one about the Public Interest Group on Cancer Research and the other about the Atlantic Cancer Consortium Patient Advisory Committee. We learnt and grew together – both of these presentations paint a picture of different experiences…
After 2 years and 3 months of working together, sadly the ACC PAC (Atlantic Cancer Consortium Patient Advisory Committee) is coming to an end due to lack of funding. During this time frame, our committee worked tirelessly to connect patient stories, scientific and medical knowledge, and priorities with the general public, scientists, clinicians and funders.…
We are pleased to note that we – the Atlantic Cancer Consortium Patient Advisory Committee (ACC PAC) – have just published our 2nd scholarly paper!! đź’“ In this paper, we describe our experience with organizing a Public Conference on Precision Medicine (March 15, 2025) for Atlantic Canadians, self-reflections, feedback received and lessons learnt for future…
My colleague John King and I were speakers in a workshop session yesterday that aimed to convey messages and tips about science communication and patient partnership.
It was an amazing one hour that was not enough. We had great perspectives shared and great questions asked by the audience, who were mostly trainees from across Atlantic Canadian post-secondary institutions. Hope we will have other opportunities to continue this vibrant conversation.
John provided his insight and perspectives, which was the most interesting and exciting part of the session. My part of the talk was an extension of a smaller presentation I delivered earlier.
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One question that left a mark in my mind was whether there was really an option for patient partners to contribute to bench/lab studies.
Around 5 years ago when I first started thinking about patient partnership, I thought about the same thing.
I thought “No way”. No way a patient partner can contribute our experimental design or interpretation of results. I was naive to think that there was no other way that they could contribute to our research. Maybe there is not – it is tough sometime, you know?
Over years, I have changed my research interests, partly because I started to partner with public members.
Now, we design studies together based on their priorities. Some partners are actively involved in improving our proposals and how we conduct studies. They bring new perspectives to our understanding. These are mostly non-lab studies, so it is easier for me to partner with and actively engage patient or public members in our studies.
What I suggested the trainee who asked this question was to challenge this and give it a try. I am curious about how their experience would be like.
In the meantime, this valuable question also made me envision a society where the distinction and division between the academics and public were gone. No more academic Ivory Towers. No more “Only I know what is right and wrong” kind of patronizing attitudes. How about we open our minds to everyone in the worldwide community and welcome them to contribute to academic endeavors?
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The term “patient partner” or “public partner” is reductive. These terms restrict the qualities of these individuals to only their condition or public-related experiences. This is not right.
We have so much to learn from each other.
We can create one universal university by working together.
Imagine how rich would our understanding and outreach would be like. How empowering and creative.
Citizen science is something I watch carefully I believe it has a great role in increasing science (and in my case, health) literacy. I think science is for everyone and if we try, we can find ways for everyone to enjoy science and have a society with a scientific base.
Hope you are interested in citizen science and public/patient partnership. Give it a try.
Sevtap Savas, PhD. St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Oct 14, 2023
I made a presentation as part of the Marathon of Hope National Cancer Centers Network speaker series last week.
You can listen to my talk here: between 30 – 51 min of the recording.
It is a nice summary of the work and expertise I have and how I would like to contribute them to the Atlantic Cancer Consortium (ACC) and national Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MoH CCN).
Happy to particularly demonstrate how my research, public engagement and outreach, leadership and advocacy activities all work towards one goal – to improve the conditions and wellness of the cancer patients and families. This is a true and a very strong goal of mine.
ACC is a large cancer research project/team focusing on Precision Medicine in cancer. We are very excited to be a part of this initiative supported by the Terry Fox Research Institute, federal government and many local and provincial funders and organizations.
I believe over time this project will bring relief to many cancer patients by creating new knowledge and personalized treatment options. Through our public engagement activities, we will also interact, engage, and work with our public members in and out of Atlantic Canada to exchange, disseminate, and create new ideas and scientific knowledge that matter most to them.
