Explores the health needs and experiences of cancer survivors, and presents useful frameworks, guidelines, tools and strategies to provide care. 

What you will achieve

• Describe the experience of survivors living with and beyond cancer
• Identify key principles underpinning survivorship care and models of care that can be implemented to enhance the survivorship experience
• Recognise the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to delivering optimal survivorship care
• Describe the importance of survivorship care plans as a key element of survivorship care and identify tools to generate survivorship care plans
• Define self-management in the context of cancer survivorship and identify tools and services to support survivors to self-manage
• Recognise the importance of addressing physical, psychosocial and practical wellbeing for cancer survivors and identify tools promote behaviour change

Acknowledgements and funding 

The original course was developed in 2013 and was funded by the Australian Cancer Survivorship Centreopens in a new tab or window, based Peter MacCallum Cancer Centreopens in a new tab or window, in collaboration with Cancer Australia, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Sydney.

The Australian Cancer Survivorship Centre is funded by the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services. 

This course has been recently updated in 2025. The Australian Cancer Survivorship Centre in collaboration with a number of cancer survivorship experts developed this course and we would specifically like to acknowledge and thank the following people/groups for their contribution to the 2025 review and update: 

• Prof Raymond Chan – Chair in Cancer Nursing, NHMRC Investigator Fellow, Princess Alexandra Hospital and Queensland University of Technology, Deputy Chair of COSA Survivorship Group 

• Ms Jenelle Loeliger – Head of Nutrition and Speech Pathology Department, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre 

• Ms Meg Rynderman – Consumer Representative, Australian Cancer Survivorship Centre 

• Prof Richard Cohn – Clinical Program Director – Medical, Head, Clinical Oncology, Sydney Children’s Hospital 

• ONTrac at Peter Mac Victorian Adolescent & Young Adult Cancer Service, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre 

• Ms Jay Hamann – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Hospital Liaison Officer, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre 

• Prof Bogda Koczwara, Senior Staff Specialist, Department of Medical Oncology, Flinders Medical Centre, National Breast Cancer Foundation Practitioner Fellow 

• A/Prof Lidia Schapira, Director Cancer Survivorship Program, Stanford University School of Medicine 

• Ms Stephanie Smith, Instructor, Paediatric Hematology/Oncology, Stanford University School of Medicine