Mindworks in Conversation with Kevin Hobbs | What Theatre Can Teach Medicine

Theatre artist, educator, and Simulated Patient pedagogy leader Kevin Hobbs joins us for a rich exploration of how performance, story, and relational work strengthen the education of future clinicians.

Drawing from his work in Playbuilding, health advocacy, and simulated patient programs, Hobbs shows how the arts create space for agency, emotional safety, and deeper learning in medical education. He highlights the ways narrative practice and narrative medicine help students reflect more honestly, connect more fully, and understand patients as people rather than cases. Hobbs also emphasizes the cognitive sophistication of SP work and the need to legitimize arts-based approaches as essential tools for person-centered care.


• How performance and theatre-based methods support deeper learning in medical education
• Why medical students crave more agency and creative involvement in their training
• The unique cognitive and emotional work simulated patients perform
• How story, improvisation, and collaboration shape clinical communication skills
• The limits of lecture-based teaching and what arts-based approaches make possible
• Why relational presence is central to both good teaching and good care
• How people act as “playwrights” and “improvisers” in everyday life and clinical encounters
• The need to legitimize artistic practices inside medical education systems
• How person-based medicine can expand beyond symptoms to include caregivers and families