I am pleased to announce Ragan N. Johnson, DNP, MSN, APRN-BC,  will join DUSON’s faculty on July 1, 2017.  Dr. Johnson will serve as one of DUSON’s faculty members for our VA Nursing Academic Partnerships in Graduate Education Program and will support the development of veteran centric content and clinical education in the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Master’s program, and in a new residency program being developed with the VA for newly certified Adult-Gero primary care NPs.  She will be a member of Division 2, Healthcare in Adult Populations.

Dr. Johnson has been a registered nurse since 2001, a nurse practitioner since 2006, and a nurse educator since 2012. Her clinical experiences include working as an RN in the Emergency Department, and as an FNP, she has experience in GI, internal medicine, and family practice. At the VA hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Johnson served a panel of over 700 veterans and was the MOVE coordinator at the VA, a group health promotion program developed to reduce obesity among veterans.  As an educator, she has taught both didactic and clinical courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In her current role as assistant professor at UTHSC, she teaches in the DNP option and serves as course lead for Epidemiology and two advanced family nursing courses for the FNP option.

Dr. Johnson earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree with an emphasis in Public Health Nursing and MSN (FNP) from The University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis and her BSN from Tennessee State University.  She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau, Tennessee Public Health Association, National Organization for Nurse Practitioner Faculties, American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, and the American Nurses Association.  Her research interests include sexual health promotion among youth and young adults and health disparities. She is also the founder of "Imagine Me”, a local nonprofit whose mission is to provide sexual health education and prevention messages to youth and young adults.

The DUSON community and our colleagues at the Durham VA look forward to welcoming Dr. Johnson to Duke and to North Carolina this summer. Dr. Johnson can be contacted at rnjohnson@ymail.com if you would like to contact her personally.