Amy V. Barnhorst MD

Dr. Barnhorst, After graduating from Dartmouth College with a degree in environmental and evolutionary biology and earth sciences, Dr. Barnhorst attended medical school and completed her residency at UC Davis. She joined the faculty soon after graduation. She is now the associate medical director of Crisis Services for Sacramento County and runs a crisis unit for patients in acute psychiatric crisis.

Prior to medical school, Dr. Barnhorst worked in outdoor and environmental education in California and Colorado, leading backcountry mountaineering courses and teaching about leadership, ecology and geology. She continues in her role as an educator by leading medical student and resident seminars on substance abuse, chronic severe mental illness, catatonia, psychopharmacology and personality disorders.

Dr. Barnhorst’s academic interests include violence and mental illness, international psychiatry, community mental health delivery systems and wilderness medicine. She serves on the Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society Mental Health Task Force and is a member of the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy. Dr. Barnhorst has also supervised students on international elective rotations in Nicaragua and New Zealand, and is currently the faculty advisor to the Wilderness Medicine Student Interest Group.