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Assistant Professor
Emory University
Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose
Dr. Marybeth Sexton is an assistant professor of infectious diseases at Emory University and serves as the director of antimicrobial stewardship for Emory University Hospital and the epidemiologist for The Emory Clinic, with associated research interests in antimicrobial resistance and healthcare-associated infections. She has worked with the Georgia Emerging Infections Program to characterize risk factors for invasive infections and associated mortality with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales and Acinetobacter, in order to identify potential targets for intervention. Her current projects involve multidisciplinary collaborations to improve antibiotic stewardship in both inpatient and outpatient settings, with evaluation of whether those interventions decrease antimicrobial days of therapy and inpatient HAI rates. She has recently focused on improving perioperative and inpatient prescribing in penicillin-allergic patients.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has led efforts around infection prevention policy development, care delivery, and implementation of programs for novel therapeutic agent use and vaccination. Her research during this time has focused on the safety and efficacy of infection control interventions, including evaluation of PPE during a supply crisis, and responding to increases seen in antimicrobial utilization and HAI rates.