Biography

Dr. Boitnott is the coordinator of the PNP-Primary Care program. As a DNP graduate, she combined both her practice and research, focusing on behaviors contributing to childhood obesity. She is also engaged in interprofessional research throughout UVA, working with School of Medicine faculty, to determine the clinical practice outcomes in collaborative standardized patient scenarios between SOM clerkship students and graduate family and pediatric nurse practitioner students.

A faculty affiliate for Youth-Nex, the Center to Promote Effective Youth Development at the UVA Curry School of Education, her research explores the effect of family engagement on youngsters' health in collaboration with students from nursing, exercise physiology, nutrition and kinesiology.

Dr. Boitnott earned a BSN from James Madison University, an MSN as a family nurse practitioner from Virginia Commonwealth University, and both a DNP and a post-masters certificiate as a pediatric nurse practitioner from UVA.

Her clinical practice began in pediatric critical care and continues today in pediatric primary and specialty care. A nurse practitioner in the Children’s Fitness Clinic at UVA, she cares for children who are overweight or obese and the many concurrent conditions that accompany this chronic illness.  As a provider-educator, she precepts and trains students from across Grounds and around the Commonwealth, including undergraduate nursing students, FNP and PNP students, medical students and residents, DNP students, dietician interns and exercise physiology and kinesiology students.

Research Focus

Childhood obesity and parental influences.

Clinical Focus

Childhood obesity.

Teaching Focus

Teaching pediatric students in both the undergraduate and graduate nursing programs, bringing case examples from my pediatric practice into the classroom for my students, exploring clinical cases together to discover knowledge.

Publications

Journal Articles

Shockey, D., Menzies, V., Glick, D.F., Taylor, A.G., Boitnott, A., & Rovnyak, V. (2013). Preprocedural distress in children with cancer: An intervention using biofeedback and relaxation. Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing, 30(3), 129-138.