Page 160 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2025

HEMATOLOGY ONCOLOGY PARTNERS WELCOMES
story by Lynn Lofton photo by Katherine Sowers
Dr. Vibha Mishra Nicaud has joined Drs. Allison Wall, Olivia Hightower and Stephanie Fussell as part of Hematology Oncology Partners (HOPe) and will be practicing in Diamondhead and Gulfport. Dr. Nicaud grew up in the Washington, D.C. area after her parents moved from India to the U.S. She recently completed a hematology and oncology fellowship at Tulane University where she trained for three years.
“It was an incredibly rigorous and rewarding experience. We worked across three hospitals, cared for patients on a dedicated bone marrow transplant unit, and managed some of the most complex cases in the region, including rare bleeding and clotting disorders, nearly all of Louisiana’s hemophilia patients, and a very diverse oncology patient population,” she says.
Medicine runs deep in Dr. Nicaud’s family. “I’m a fifth-generation physician on my mother’s side, so I suppose you could say it’s in my blood,” she says. “Growing up, I was inspired by my grandfather, a general surgeon who worked in underserved hospitals in rural India. I remember watching him operate in facilities that often lacked even the most basic resources. Witnessing that kind of dedication left a lasting impression on me.”
She considered other career paths during college, especially public health, but her heart kept leading her back to medicine.
She spent many summers in rural
eastern India, volunteering at the Red Cross Hospital for Women and Children. “Most of the women we cared for came from villages far from medical facilities, and many couldn’t read or write. Those experiences left a deep impression on me,” she recalls.
That passion led her to pursue a Master
footsteps as a neurologist, Nicaud studied psychology and neuroscience in college and spent several summers before medical school doing research internships in neuroscience at Stanford University.
“But everything changed during my first hematology and oncology lecture in medical school. I was captivated by the science behind how cancer cells grow and spread, and the mechanism behind how chemotherapy and immunotherapy agents are designed to target them,” she says.
Her interest deepened after treating her first oncology patient, a young mother with ovarian cancer. That experience lit a spark which led to oncology as a calling.
“Intellectually, I thrive on the mental stimulation and problem-solving my field demands, and it’s an exciting time to be in hematology and oncology,” she says. “There are always new discoveries, new medications, and new treatments becoming available. We are now able to help patients in ways we simply couldn’t before.”
Nicaud and her husband, Jourdan, are the parents of two little girls, Tara and Suri. She is deeply passionate about education and helping enrich the lives of the next generation, especially making careers in STEM more accessible and inclusive for all children. She serves on the board of Lynn Meadows Discovery Center and is excited to become even more involved in the Gulf Coast community.
Dr. Vibha Mishra Nicaud.
160 | September 2025
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of Public Health (MPH) at UC Berkeley after college. “While there, I started a small program offering vision screenings and free eyeglasses to residents of a local homeless shelter,” she says. “I learned a lot about the kinds of challenges people face, whether it’s lack of access, housing, or support, and how much difference small acts of care can make.”
After pursuing a career in medicine and deciding not to follow in her mother’s