Rate My Professor Bradley Watts

Bradley V. Watts, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine. He practices as a psychiatrist at the University of Vermont Medical Center and holds leadership roles including Associate Chief Medical Officer for Mental Health and Vice Chair for Clinical Operations. Watts completed his Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences at Oklahoma State University, earned his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in 1992, and finished his residency in Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center from 1992 to 1996. He also holds a Master of Public Health from Dartmouth Medical School in Evaluative Clinical Sciences. Board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Psychiatry, he maintains active medical licenses in Vermont and New Hampshire. Professionally, Watts is a psychiatrist at the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Clinical Director of the Veterans Rural Health Resource Center since 2019, and has held leadership positions in the VA National Center for Patient Safety and the Office of System Design and Improvement. He also serves as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

Watts specializes in mental health quality improvement, patient safety, treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder, suicide prevention, opioid use disorder management, and rural mental health disparities among veterans. He has led numerous projects funded by the VA Office of Research and Development and the National Institutes of Health, including clinical trials on transcranial magnetic stimulation for PTSD. Notable publications include 'A sham controlled study of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for posttraumatic stress disorder' (2012, Brain Stimulation), 'Meta-analysis of the efficacy of treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder' (2013), 'Strategies to prevent death by suicide: meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials' (2017), 'Association of Medication Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder With Suicide Mortality' (2022, American Journal of Psychiatry), 'Mental Healthcare Quality Across the COVID-19 Pandemic in Rural versus Urban Patients' (2025), and 'Rural Practice Made Attractive: A Scoping Review of Rural Primary Care Physician Recruitment and Retention Incentives' (2026). At the Larner College of Medicine Dean’s Celebration of Excellence in Research, he was recognized as winner in the Clinical Trials category and UVM Health Medical Group Senior Researcher of the Year.