Dawn-Christi M Bruijnzeel, MD

Dr. Bruijnzeel received her undergraduate degree at the University of Florida in Neurobiological Sciences. She also completed medical school and the general psychiatry residency program at the University of Florida. She has worked at the Malcom Randall VA Hospital in a variety of capacities over the past 18 years. Her interests include inpatient care, neuromodulation, treatment refractory depression and psychosis and community psychiatry. She worked on the inpatient psychiatric service at the VA for a total of 10 years, with a focus on psychotic disorders. Beginning in 2006 and spanning the next decade, she revitalized and grew the electroconvulsive (ECT) therapy program at the VA. She then turned her sights to transcranial magnetic therapy and founded the TMS program at the VA in 2016. Finally, over the past 2 years, she has developed the ketamine/esketamine program at the VA. She continues to be clinically active in all forms of neuromodulation, in- and outpatient consultations for treatment refractory illness and she sees both inpatients and outpatients at the VA.

Dr. Bruijnzeel also has a strong interest in community psychiatry. She volunteered her services at the Helping Hands clinic weekly for over ten years during residency and the beginning of her faculty position. She then worked with community programs through the VA from 2012 through 2016. In the past year, she established a Street Psychiatry program that is funded by a collaborative grant with Grace Marketplace. This program brings psychiatric care to unhoused individuals who are otherwise unable to access services.

She has served in a number of administrative roles including Chief of Psychiatry Service at the Malcom Randall VA from 2018-2022. She is now Associate Chief for Inpatient Services at the VA.

Lastly, she greatly enjoys her role as an educator with the Department of Psychiatry within the UF College of Medicine. She provides clinical teaching and didactics to psychiatry residents, medical students and other trainees.