Karen Giles, MD, MS

Karen Giles, MD, MS is an interventional psychiatrist passionate about mood and anxiety disorders, particularly treatment-resistant depression. She diagnoses and treats patients at Breakthru Psychiatric Solutions in Sandy Springs, Georgia, a suburb north of Atlanta.

Dr. Giles obtained a master's degree in molecular neuroscience from Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Sciences studying neurodegenerative diseases. She then attended medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where she was accepted into the rigorous medical-scientist training program, which comprised of four years of basic, translational, and clinical scientific research in addition to four years of medical school. Dr. Giles completed her four-year psychiatry residency training at Emory University School of Medicine, where she served as chief resident. She maintains her connection to Emory as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

As an interventionalist, Dr. Giles targets brain circuits through neuromodulation and fast-acting alternatives to more traditional mental health pharmacotherapies. She is certified in administering ketamine and esketamine by the Integrative Psychiatric Institute and in performing transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) through the Clinical TMS Society. 

Dr. Giles takes a comprehensive and collaborative approach with every patient and utilizes interventional modalities along with medication and lifestyle optimization. She is committed to staying current on the latest treatment modalities for mood and anxiety disorders and bringing them into the clinic at Breakthru Psychiatric Solutions.

Over the past two years, Dr. Giles has become an expert in identifying and treating the long-term psychiatric effects of COVID-19, including depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. She authored the first textbook chapter devoted to this topic. Other areas in Dr. Giles’s expertise include nutritional psychiatry, women’s mental health (particularly in the perinatal period), and psycho-oncology (treatment of mental health concerns throughout the cancer journey).

Outside of medicine, Dr. Giles enjoys pilates, hiking, skiing, cooking, learning to play golf, and traveling. She currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with her significant other, Jim, two cats, and a black lab.