PTSD: National Center for PTSD

Biography

Dr. Karen Drexler is board certified in Psychiatry and Addiction Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She serves as National Mental Health Program Director for Addictive Disorders in VA Central Office.

Dr. Drexler graduated from Duke University School of Medicine and completed her psychiatry residency at Wilford Hall US Air Force Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. She served 4 years as a psychiatrist and Medical Director of the Alcohol Rehabilitation Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and on the faculty at Wright State University School of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio. She currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine where she was Addiction Psychiatry Residency Training Director from 2002 to 2014.

Her research interests include clinical trials in addiction treatment and translational research on the neurobiology of addiction.

Dr. Drexler has served as a member and Chairperson for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Addiction Psychiatry Examination Committee, member of the American Psychiatric Association Council on Addiction Psychiatry, and as a course director for the American Society of Addiction Medicine Review Course in Addiction Medicine. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of CADCA (the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America). She continues to actively practice addiction psychiatry at the Atlanta VA Medical Center.