Clinical Psychiatry
Dr. Ryznar is an adult psychiatrist with expertise in consultation-liaison psychiatry, inpatient psychiatry, and collaborative care. As a physician, she believes in affirming everyone’s dignity and humanity. She uses a comprehensive approach to psychiatric assessment, integrating biological, psychological, social, environmental risk factors, and partners with her patients when it comes to treatment. For more about her perspective on psychiatry, see this faculty profile.
Dr. Ryznar received her medical training at Harvard Medical School and her psychiatric training at the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. She is licensed in Illinois and Maryland and maintains board certification with the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Dr. Ryznar currently practices at Sheppard Pratt Health System and Great Baltimore Medical Center. She has previously worked at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, and Evanston Hospital. Dr. Ryznar practices in hospital settings and does not have her own practice; she therefore does not accept referrals.
Scholarly contributions:
Dr. Ryznar publishes on psychiatric concepts and clinical practice. She is particularly interested in highlighting underappreciated psychiatric conditions and improving psychiatric practice. She is the lead editor for the psychiatric textbook “Landmark Papers in Psychiatry,” and has over 15 peer-reviewed publications.
As a psychiatry trainee, she was recognized as a Leadership Fellow by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychiatric Association Foundation (2017-2019) and a Laughlin Fellow by the American College of Psychiatrists (2018-2019). Her article on Functional Coma was awarded the Dorfman Award for best review article published that year by the Academy for Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (2020).
For her more recent work, she was inducted as a member into the American College of Psychiatrists (2024 to present), highlighted as Climate Champion of the Month by the Climate Psychiatry Alliance (9/2024), and appointed a member of the Committee on Climate Change and Mental Health for the American Psychiatric Association (2026-2027).
Textbook:
Landmark papers in psychiatry.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Editors: Ryznar E, Pederson A, Reinecke M, Csernansky J.
Peer-reviewed articles:
Functional coma: two case reports and a review of the literature.
Psychosomatics 2019; 60: 343-51.
Authors: Ryznar E, Wilcox D.Conceptual and Historical Evolution of Psychiatric Nosology.
International Review of Psychiatry 2021; 33(5): 486-499.
Authors: Aftab A, Ryznar E.The plastics crisis: a neuropsychiatric problem hidden in plain sight.
Psychiatric Times 2024; 41(9): 13-16.
Authors: Ryznar E, Haase E, Lauterbach M.
Selected as the cover story for the September issueCL Educational Case Conference:
Challenges of managing severe opioid use disorder in the hospital setting
The Journal of the Academy for Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry 2025; S2667-2960(25)00511-7.
Authors: Baniadam K, Levenson J, Raisinghani R, Schnipke B, Ryznar E.American Psychiatric Association Lifestyle Psychiatry Presidential Workgroup Report.
American Journal of Psychiatry; 2025; 182(9), 885‑887. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.25182005
Authors: Merlo G, Porter‑Stransky KA, Sugden SG, Roy K, Hirschberg A, Smalls‑Mantey A, Agrawal A, Bahekar P, Beck JL, Bhatia R, Buckholz A, Colon‑Rivera HA, Carroll NA, Carey T, Fung WLA, Hopper K, Ijeaku I, Lee W, Madaan V, Nagarajan R, Penumetcha V, Pereira‑Sanchez V, Patel AK, Raju N, Ridout KK, Ridout SJ, Ryznar E, Somers JC, Taneja K, Verma D, Wong WT, Viswanathan R, Baron D.Climate-related and nature-based interventions for mental health: an umbrella review and meta-analysis.
JAMA Psychiatry, 2026: online first doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2026.0037
Authors: Brandt L, De Prisco M, Nocera D, Rehm MC, Cohen S, Kosker DN, von Luxburg S, Ori D, Pinzón-Espinosa J, Scheuber P, Sonntag N, Radua J, Hasan A, Luykx, and the Global Evidence on Planetary Mental Health Study Health Group.
Blog Posts:
Capacity assessment: a clinical tale in two parts. CLOSLER Blog. March 16, 2020. Available at: https://closler.org/clinical-reasoning/capacity-evaluations-a-clinical-tale-in-two-parts
Why chemical imbalance is the wrong way to talk about depression. Oxford University Press Blog. August 18, 2020. Available at: https://blog.oup.com/2020/08/why-chemical-imbalance-is-the-wrong-way-to-talk-about-depression/