You can call me MC.
General, sport and performance psychiatrist · MD, MSc, FRCPC · Canada
I grew up in Ste-Anne-du-Ruisseau, an Acadian village in Nova Scotia with about sixty people in it. I asked so many questions as a kid that my classmates once put their hands on my head and prayed for all of them to be answered. It did not cure me.
I came to psychiatry through kinesiology, exercise physiology and medicine. My clinical work has ranged from caring for people living with homelessness and polysubstance use to working with professional athletes and executives. For eight years, I worked as a mental health consultant for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Marlies. I also helped develop proposed mental health minimum standards for the NHL. Across those settings, I keep coming back to the same question: what would make this better—for the person in front of me, the team around them, or the system they depend on?
That question connects the work I do today: clinical practice, teaching, performance coaching, writing and building software. I teach at the University of British Columbia and the University of Calgary, and co-wrote The Psychology of High-Performance Sports Organizations. Whether I’m assessing adult ADHD, leading an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) group, teaching a coach or developing software, I try to be precise about what we know, honest about what we don’t, and practical about what to do next.
I teach medical students and residents at the University of British Columbia and the University of Calgary, and I teach practicing doctors about ADHD and other psychiatric conditions through continuing medical education. Most of the people I teach aren't psychiatrists and won't become psychiatrists, but all of them treat people with mental illness. How they learn to think about it shapes the care those patients get.
I also teach coaches, managers, and others who work with athletes. Athletes work under a kind of pressure most people never see. When results matter that much, it gets harder for everyone around them to see clearly, and that affects the decisions made about them, how they see themselves, what they're willing to tell anyone, and the care they get. An athlete's mental health and their performance overlap, but they are separate problems, and both depend on the organization the athlete plays for.
Dr. MC Bourque Virtual Practice is an adult psychiatry practice in BC. It sees patients by referral for ADHD assessments and ACT group therapy, all delivered virtually. I also work in the emergency department and inpatient units at Kelowna General Hospital.
I work with a small number of executives and high performers, separately from the medical practice — coaching is not clinical care.
I’m taking on four new coaching clients. If you’re interested in working together, leave your contact details below and I’ll get back to you.
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The Psychology of High-Performance Sports Organizations, which I co-wrote, was published by Routledge in 2026.
Curiosities is Dr. MCB’s monthly newsletter about how we think, behave and perform—in sport, at work and in everyday life. Each issue brings one question, one useful idea, one thing to try and one link worth exploring. Tools and downloads are coming soon.
I give talks for organizations and conferences.
Limbus Health is building software to help doctors assess adult ADHD. I started it because people wait too long for these assessments, and the wait does harm. The software is still in development and is not authorized for clinical use. Joining the waitlist gets you updates about the software; it does not book an assessment.
Pipaco Tech makes software for people who have a lot of ideas and less attention than they'd like, including people with ADHD or something like it.