Sexson receives lifetime achievement award

Dr. Sandra Sexson, chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia, is the recipient of the 2021 Marquis Who’s Who Albert Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award.

The award is given on the basis of career longevity, philanthropic endeavors and lasting contributions to society.

Under Sexson’s leadership, the division has grown from three to seven child and adolescent psychiatrists and from four to six fellowship trainees. She also established the innovative Post Pediatric Portal Program at MCG, one of four in the country, which allows fully trained pediatricians to fast track into psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry training. She has been the program director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship since 2004.

As a leader in psychiatric education, she has held national offices in American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, as well as the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the American Association of Directors of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She has chaired the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Medical Education and Lifelong Learning, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Psychiatry Review Committee and AACAP’s Training and Education and Lifelong Learning Committees. Recently, she has worked with ACGME-International and has served as an ACGME-I Medicine Review Committee member.

Sexson has received a number of other national awards, including the 2018 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s Virginia Q. Anthony Outstanding Woman Leader Award. The award, named for Sexson’s AACAP mentor and the group’s longtime executive director Ginger Anthony, celebrates the lifetime achievements of extraordinary women in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry.

She also is a past recipient of the American College of Psychiatrists’ Bowis Award for her work in developing and serving as first editor of the child psychiatry in-training exam, and the American Psychiatric Association’s Vestermark Award, which recognizes excellence, leadership and creativity in the field of psychiatric education.

She earned her medical degree and completed an internship in pediatrics at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. She completed residency training in general psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, a fellowship in child development at University of Mississippi School of Medicine, and a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis.