Kristi Crymes, DO

Dr. Kristi Crymes is head of the HEAL program, an IZL instructor, member of the Board of Directors and a Chosei Zen student. When she isn’t at work as a family medicine physician and faculty at Cox Family Medicine Residency, you can find her on the virtual dojo or exploring the wilderness with her husband and 3 young boys near, and far from, their home in Springfield, MO. 

She is passionate about practicing and teaching the kind of medicine that allows for the free expression of compassion. She found this way of medicine not at medical school but at her first IZL/HEAL program in 2017. Since then, she has devoted herself to the challenge of integrating what she is learning through Zen into the practice of medicine. She believes that Zen leadership training can transform medicine into something better for all of us. Beyond this, she sees that anyone from any walk of life who is practicing Zen is indeed practicing medicine, in its truest form.