Kathryn Sexson APRN, FNP-BC

Kathryn Sexson is the director for the family nurse practitioner program and an assistant clinical professor for the Family Caregiving Institute at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. Her teaching expertise focuses on advanced family nurse practitioner practice, pathophysiology, pharmacology, acute care, geriatrics, and family caregiving. She collaborates with the National Resource Center for Alaska Native Elders on family caregiving in rural Alaska. Prior to her UC Davis appointment, she worked as an assistant professor in both the undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of Alaska Anchorage School of Nursing. In 2008, she established Denali Family HealthCare, where she practiced as an independent family nurse practitioner specializing in geriatrics until 2018. Previous to her role as a nurse practitioner, she worked in critical care and transitional care. As a hospital leader, she managed the medical and oncology, orthopedics and surgical, transitional care, social work, and continuum of care departments for Alaska Regional Hospital. As an advocate for older adults and their families, Kathryn served on the interdisciplinary committee to develop the Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment, a provider order form that communicates a patient’s end-of-life choices, emergency medical, personal, and other health care providers. She served on the Alaska Statewide Access to Care for Medicare Recipients Task Force, which resulted in the development of Senior Care Clinics throughout the state. She is certified as a family nurse practitioner and obtained her bachelor of science degree in nursing in 1996 and master of science degree in nursing in 2004, both from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She earned a doctor of philosophy degree in 2014 from Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.