David R. McDuff, MD

David R. McDuff, M.D. is the long-time sports psychiatrist & mental preparation trainer for the Baltimore Orioles (1996-2025) & Baltimore Ravens (1996-2013) and more recently the Performance Medicine Physician for the Indianapolis Colts (2015-2018).  He is also the author of the 2012 book “Sports Psychiatry: Strategies for Life Balance & Peak Performance”.  For his work with professional and college teams he uses an integrated, on-site-model providing players, coaches, & other staff with specialized services including player selection, team building, life balance, stress control, performance optimization, mental preparation, energy recovery, injury rehabilitation, pain control, sleep medicine, substance prevention, mental disorders treatment.

          In addition to his work at the professional level, Dr. McDuff has worked extensively with Olympic, Professional, Division I, II, & III University/College, elite club and high school athletes and teams.  At the Olympic/Professional Level he has worked with golf, tennis, football, baseball, soccer, rugby, windsurfing, and pentathlon. At the college level he has worked at the Universities of Maryland at College Park and Baltimore County, Johns Hopkins, Loyola, Towson, Stevenson, McDaniel, & Coppin.  For the past eight years he has also been a mental preparation consultant to the Teelin Irish Step Dancing School in Columbia Maryland and has worked with many of its dancers attending national & world competitions. Internationally, he has worked with the Indian National Archery Team (2023-2024) and also the International Olympic Committee’s Mental Health Consensus Panel and Working Group for Elite Athletes (2018-2026). In 2026 he is serving as a Sports and Performance Psychiatry Consultant for the US Tennis Association.

          From his office practice in Ellicott City, Maryland he works with track, cross country, hockey, soccer and lacrosse teams and sees athletes from all sports but especially distance running, golf, tennis, soccer, baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse, rugby, figure skating, swimming, gymnastics, and ice hockey. 

He is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland at Baltimore School of Medicine and is board certified in General, Addiction and Sports & Performance Psychiatry.  He is the founding Director, of the Department’s Division of Alcohol & Drug Abuse and its Addiction Psychiatry and Medicine Fellowship Programs as well as its Sports Psychiatry Program. Finally, he is a retired US Army Colonel (1974-2002) with command, combat and special operations experience.

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