My name is Brian Belyea. I'm an Attending Physician in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. During my intern year, I spent a month on the pediatric oncology service and I worked with a little girl who was being treated for leukemia. During that month, I took care of her and saw how she fought against this disease, saw how her family, her parents, and her brothers supported her. And I was moved by the strength of this little girl and the love of her family. And I knew I wanted to go into pediatrics. I valued the deep and the enduring relationships that pediatricians made with their patients. The most common childhood cancer is B-cell leukemia and that's our experience at UVA as well. It's the most common cancer we treat.

In addition to taking care of patients in clinic, I conduct bench research and my research is focused on childhood leukemia. I believe that UVA is an excellent place to receive care. We are a unique size where we're big enough to provide the cutting edge, top of the line, very sophisticated cancer therapy, but we're also small enough where we can do it in environment that feels safe and feels comfortable. One of the great things about the size of our program is that when a child or their parent is at home and they have a question and they call us, they always know the doctor on the other end.