From the Locker Room to the Clinic: Sport Psychology Strategies for Healthcare Teams
Speaker: Marc Cormier, Ph.D., CMPC – Associate Professor of Sport and Performance Psychology, College of Education | Director of Counseling and Performance Psychology – UK Athletics
This year’s keynote presentation will explore the application of performance psychology principles to healthcare, with a special emphasis on rural settings where resources and staffing are often limited. Drawing on lessons within sports psychology, the talk will highlight strategies to enhance communication, strengthen group dynamics, and improve performance under pressure, while addressing critical challenges such as burnout, transitions, and workforce sustainability.
Attendees will gain practical insights into how concepts like mental toughness, role clarity, and team cohesion—long studied in sport—can directly translate to quality improvement in healthcare organizations. By reframing healthcare challenges through a performance lens, the session will equip providers, leaders, and staff with tools to optimize their individual and collective effectiveness while maintaining personal well-being.
About Marc Cormier
Dr. Marc Cormier is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion at the University of Kentucky. He serves as the Director for the Sport and Exercise Psychology Graduate Program and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses within the department, including psychology and sociology of sport, psychology of injury and rehabilitation, group dynamics in sport, and applied sport psychology. His primary areas of research include the psychological aspects of sport injury, team cohesion, and mental skills training and he has published in regional, national, and international journals/conference proceedings.
In addition to his faculty responsibilities, Dr. Cormier has a 50% appointment in UK Athletics where he coordinates all counseling and performance psychology services for the athletic department. In this role, Dr. Cormier has worked alongside numerous BCS Bowl, SEC, and NCAA championship teams, as well as All-American and Olympic athletes/champions.
More recently, he has been invited to speak to audiences in various non-sport performance contexts such as the TEDx platform, surgeons, performance artists, emergency responders, and Fortune 500 leaders. He is an award-winning teacher and practitioner, as a six-time (2016-2024) recipient of A Teacher Who Made a Difference, the 2021 UK Outstanding Teacher Award, the 2021 Early Career Practitioner Award and the 2022 Teaching Excellence Award, both from the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. In 2024, Dr. Cormier was named a Fellow within the Association for Applied Sport Psychology.
Dr. Cormier received his Ph.D. in Sport and Exercise Psychology from West Virginia University in 2014, is a certified mental performance consultant (CMPC), a member of the United States Olympic Committee’s Sport Psychology registry, and a Licensed Professional Counselor (Associate) in Kentucky. A native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Dr. Cormier is every bit the stereotypical Canadian.
He enjoys cold weather, a good cup of Tim Horton’s coffee, maple syrup, being friendly, and hockey. He continues to enjoy recreational and semi-competitive sports such as hockey, cycling, golf, running, and triathlons. Outside of UK, he loves spending time with the brilliant women in his life: his wife and two young daughters.
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