Vijayalakshmi Divakaran, NP

One aspect that I really like about cardiology is that you get to develop long-term relationships and take care of people over a number of years. With intervention I also get to take care of people in the hospital and and do acute procedures, but then also follow them and help them out. Being able to develop that rapport and have a good relationship over a long period of time is a nice aspect.

I've been doing oncology for about 20 years. Things have changed a lot. Before, we were just doing chemotherapy drugs and patients would have issues with nausea coming to the cancer center for treatments. Now, we have patients having dinner and lunch while getting chemotherapy, which is a huge change. Not only that, we are moving more and more towards targeted treatments, where we are finding out the mutations that are causing the disease process and we can attack them - and that limits side effects.

The aspect of my work that I'm most excited about is that it allows me to continue to learn and find new ways to help my patients - new ways to address old problems, which allows my patients to recover more quickly, with less pain and suffering and the ability to continue on with their lives.