On April 14 and 15, CSO hosted its annual in-person leadership meeting in Montreal, Canada. Nearly 50 CSO leaders and guest speakers from 18 countries were in attendance to reflect on CSO’s progress and advance its priorities.
The opening plenary session was live streamed to CSO members and is now available on YouTube. Dr. Chris Booth, one of CSO’s founders, delivered an overview of CSO’s activities and its priorities for the coming year. Drs. Richard Sullivan, Fidel Rubagumya, and Jennifer Miller delivered keynote talks about the human crisis in cancer care, progress on cancer policy in Rwanda, and the Good Pharma Scorecard, respectively.
In addition, CSO’s four main project teams – Clinical Trials, Clinician Education, Patient Priorities, and Health Systems provided updates on key projects currently underway, including a review of global oncology curricula and the development of a values-to-action framework for patient-centred clinical trials.
Other panels and talks during the meeting focused on topics like: improving critical appraisal capacity in LMICs, meaningful engagement of people with lived experience, and applying CSO principles to single-arm trials.
We were pleased to welcome Dr. Eric Small, President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, to the meeting. Dr. Small provided an insightful keynote talk about areas of convergence and potential collaboration between CSO and ASCO.
CSO members in attendance also discussed the results of CSO’s membership survey and how to strengthen engagement with members around the world. They also engaged in a strategic planning session to help set priorities for the coming year.
A theme that ran throughout the meeting was how to translate CSO’s work and principles into real change in our cancer care systems, in alignment with its vision of changing cultures, mindsets, and systems to improve patient outcomes.
CSO looks forward to engaging more closely with members from around the world to deepen our impact and ensure that the outcomes that matter most are at the centre of cancer research and cancer care.
