We are thrilled to announce that our 2026 plenary speaker will be physician author K. Jane Lee, MD.
Dr. Lee is a Professor of Pediatrics, and Bioethics and Medical Humanities, at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where she is the Interim Division Chief of Complex Care. She practiced pediatric critical care medicine for the first 15 years of her career, then transitioned into working with the Complex Care Program at Children’s Wisconsin.
Dr. Lee is the mother of two children, one of whom has severe neurologic impairment from a brain injury at birth. She is a passionate advocate for anti-ableism. Her book, Catastrophic Rupture: A Memoir of Healing, shows how the experience of parenting her daughter has transformed her perspective on disability and profoundly impacted her as a physician, mother, and person.
As a pediatric critical care physician and an ethicist, Jane Lee was accustomed to caring for children with a range of serious conditions and disabilities, and felt comfortable helping families navigate decision-making for these children. When a complicated delivery left her second child with a severe brain injury, she found that everything she had learned about disability and personhood as a physician and ethicist was no help as a parent.
This book allows the reader to walk alongside the author as she struggles to bond with and love her daughter, as she reconciles what is happening at home with her ongoing role as a physician to patients and families in similar circumstances, and as she shifts from the medical perspective of disability that sees an impaired body, to the mother’s perspective that sees the beauty and value in the person that is her child.
Friday afternoon: Olbrich Botanical Gardens
Friday evening welcome reception: Lake City Books
Saturday: Pyle Center
Saturday evening story slam: location TBD, click here to submit your story!
Saturday morning: Olbrich Botanical Gardens