The University of Maryland (UMD) appointed Yvette L. Rooks, M.D., to serve as Head Team Physician and Assistant Director in the University Health Center on August 21, 2019. In these roles, Dr. Rooks will lead the UHC’s newly-created sports medicine department, and serve as the primary care clinician and sports medicine specialist to UMD student-athletes, and to the campus as needed. She will oversee all aspects of sports medicine, including athletic training, sports nutrition, and sports psychology.
This position is part of the university’s transition to a model of autonomous and patient-centered care for student-athletes. This is a model in which the athletic medical staff, including the lead team physician, athletic trainers, nutritionists and mental health practitioners, are employed outside of and operate independently of the athletics department, as part of the University Health Center in the Division of Student Affairs.
Dr. Rooks comes to the university from RWJBarnabas Health, New Jersey’s most comprehensive academic health care system and the official health care provider for Rutgers University athletics, where she serves as Chief Medical Officer for athletics at Rutgers. In this role, she provides leadership and clinical care in both sports medicine and primary care for all Rutgers student-athletes. Previously, Dr. Rooks served for nearly two decades as a team physician at the University of Maryland.
During her time at UMD, Dr. Rooks also served in many roles at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, including Assistant Professor, Residency Program Director and Executive Vice Chairman for the Department of Family and Community Medicine.
Dr. Rooks is a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians; American Medical Society for Sports Medicine; and College Athletic Trainers Association; and is an Executive Board Member of the College Athletic Trainers Society. She is certified under the American Board of Family Medicine.
She has earned a number of honors and awards in her career, including Baltimore Magazine’s Top Doctors Recognition; UMB Presidents’ Founders Day Award for Public Servant of the Year; John M. Dennis Award for Commitment to Rural Health Medical Education; and Faculty Teaching Award, awarded by Family Medicine Residents for contributions to resident education. In addition, she was a speaker at a White House Initiative on Men’s Health in 2016.
Dr. Rooks earned a B.S. in biology and chemistry from State University of New York at Albany, and M.D. from the Health Science Center at Syracuse. She completed her residency at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where she served as Chief Resident and was a fellow in the Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship, Division of Sports Medicine.
