He is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, where he is also Director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society.

[2] Metzl is an expert on gun violence and mental illness, which is the subject of his latest book, What We've Become, Living and Dying in a Country of Arms.

[5][6][7] He received two bachelor's degrees, one in biology and one in English literature, from the University of Missouri, Kansas City, where he went on to earn his M.D.

[9] In 2011, he became the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry and director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University.

[8][10] Metzl has written of white identity in the United States being expressed through a vector of "shared resentments" rather than unifying values.