Beth Ann Johnson, MA, MD

Biography

My clinical interests surround premature infants, neonates with surgical issues and neonates with congenital heart disease. My clinical specialty is neonatology, providing complex care to term and preterm infants in the Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Cincinnati Children's, a quaternary referral hospital.

I provide care to infants requiring medical and surgical subspecialty care. Patients are referred to Cincinnati Children's NICU from around the world. We also have a Fetal Care Center and a Special Delivery Unit where neonates with critical lesions can deliver amidst the subspecialty care they need to transition to extrauterine life. I also offer consultative services to neonates in the Cardiac ICU at Cincinnati Children's.

My primary area of scholarly interest and research is medical education and simulation training. I’m pursuing areas of study focused on curriculum development, procedural experience and perceived procedural comfort in the NICU. We track how this exposure and comfort develop and change over a neonatologist's career, from fellowship training through early-, mid- and late-career.

I serve as Medical Director of the Cincinnati Children's NICU simulation program. We provide content expertise and organization to the many simulation activities throughout our delivery unit and intensive care unit. I am also the site principal investigator for the Neonatal Research Network (NRN) trial, evaluating the impact of medical treatment of the patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). Eligible and consented neonates are randomized to medical treatment versus observation. The enrolled neonates are followed prospectively for the primary outcomes of death or chronic lung disease.