Effective May 1, 2016, Dr. Joseph Thornton was appointed Associate Chief of Staff for the Mental Health Service Line (MHSL) at the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System (NF/SGVHS)
In addition to his role at NF/SGVHS Dr. Thornton has been a member of the University of Florida College of Medicine faculty since the spring of 2010 as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. In the past Dr. Thornton has been on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of South Florida. From 1996 to 2003, Dr. Thornton was on the faculty of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He was the Medical Director of the Inpatient Psychiatry Unit at University Hospital, founded the Safe Family Project (prevention of family violence) and co-founded the University Clinical Psychopharmacology Laboratory. He has over two- dozen publications and several teaching awards. From 2003 to 2010 Dr. Thornton served as the Medical Executive Director for the North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center (NFETC). While at NFETC he founded the Alachua Area Medical Reserve Corps.
Dr. Thornton has years of experience supervising multiple health disciplines within state institutions. During his academic work he had significant interdisciplinary collaboration either in geriatrics or in substance abuse and public health. Dr. Thornton also participated in a federally funded faculty development training program for interdisciplinary teaching through an interagency program called Project MAINSTREAM.