When Sharing Stories Becomes Medicine
I am an artist, theater maker, & author dedicated to creating work that supports medical students & professionals to discover their best practices for:
Caring & communicating with patients
Dealing with burn-out/compassion exhaustion
Talking about grief, trauma & completion-of-life processes
I call this Compassionate Creativity.
Throughout the years, my artistic career led me into the fields of Narrative Medicine and Medical Humanities.
I create unique experiences for medical practitioners, patients, chaplains, and students to be viscerally moved by visual art, music, poetry, images & character transformation. From there, I facilitate a rejuvenating conversation that supports practitioners to speak from their hearts, remember their initial intentions and connect with their colleagues anew.
“[Quinn’s performance of] Vamping doesn’t attempt to do the impossible by telling a universal narrative of aging and dementia; instead, it gives an immensely personal and humanistic story of one patient’s experience of life.
— Irene Park, Duke University Research Blog
I have facilitated interactive workshops, lectures, & performances at:
Brown University: Creative Medicine Series
Duke University: Trent Center for Bioethics
Wake Forest University: Medical Humanities Institute’s Narrative Medicine Series
Johnson & Wales PA Program
Lehigh University: Classroom Performances
Muhlenberg College: The Narrative Initiative
Australia: Gathering of Kindness (Digital)
UVM: Full Circle Festival on Art & Heart of Aging
A memoir. A field guide. A curriculum.
Kali wrote I Am Compassionate Creativity this book in 2016. Within its pages, she offers listeners values, stories, questions that inspire 111 ways to connect compassion & creativity throughout life.
Kali has used these stories - especially #6 - in workshops for medical communities and students around “Our Assumptions on Aging.” After working together, Kali always gives participants access to the whole book to move forward on their own.
Feel free to listen now…
“Often enough, physicians are either not invited to be human, or they cannot endure their own vulnerability in the middle of so much suffering. There was an intimacy to Kali’s performance that allowed me to be close - without trading on my profession as the condition for this invitation to closeness… a reminder of my own humanness, and of the reality that I share the human condition with my patients and their families. These performances were layers of generosity for someone like me.”
~ Raymond Barfield, MD, PhD, Duke University Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, & Palliative Care
A sample program on “The Movement of Grief”:
Participants read a poem aloud before watching this live scrolling story/music:
““Watching the magic of Kali’s performance gave the audience the courage and motivation to ask questions about care-giving and speak of concerns around dementia that have probably been on their hearts for a long time.”
— Department of Senior Services, Buffalo, NY
"Each performance by Kali Quinn generates a powerful magnetic field. One is overwhelmed with sheer awe at the range of her creativity, then captivated by the personalities and stories of her characters. Combining the joy and playfulness of a child with the wisdom of an ancient, Kali opens every heart in the room to a new level of compassion and understanding."
— Camilla Rockwell, Founder & Co-Director, Full Circle Festival 2014
Part of a performative lecture on
“Assumptions Around Aging & Memory Care”
In patient-provider communication courses, after seeing this woman move through the test, students then role play with this character and members of their family…