
When Doctors Near Glen, Lisbon Witness the Impossible
The waiting room at any hospital in Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region is a place where hope and dread sit side by side. Families clutch rosaries, prayer beads, and each other, while behind closed doors physicians apply the full arsenal of modern medicine. Occasionally—more often than the medical establishment acknowledges—what emerges from those doors is not the expected outcome but something far more remarkable. "Physicians' Untold Stories" documents these moments through the eyes of the physicians who witnessed them. Dr. Scott Kolbaba presents their accounts without editorial filter, allowing the raw power of each story to speak for itself. The result is a book that neither preaches nor debunks but simply bears witness to the extraordinary intersection of medicine and the miraculous that physicians in Glen, Lisbon and across America continue to encounter.

About the Author
Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba, MD is an internist at Northwestern Medicine in Wheaton, Illinois. He interviewed more than 200 physicians about their most extraordinary experiences.

Physicians' Untold Stories
by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD • 4.5 stars (1018 reviews)
Miraculous experiences doctors are hesitant to share with their patients, or ANYONE!
Order on Amazon →Meant to awe, instruct, and inspire — stories that will convince even the harshest skeptic. — From the introduction to Physicians' Untold Stories
Medical Fact
Human hair grows at an average rate of 6 inches per year — about the same speed as continental drift.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Glen, Lisbon
Physicians practicing in Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region work at the intersection of modern medicine and experiences that resist explanation. In conversations that rarely leave the break room or the on-call suite, doctors in and around Glen, Lisbon have reported encounters with phenomena that their training never prepared them for — from patients who describe verifiable details about events that occurred while they were clinically dead, to deathbed visions shared simultaneously by multiple family members, to recoveries that defy every prognostic model available.
The medical community in Glen, Lisbon includes physicians across every stage of their careers — residents navigating the exhaustion of training, mid-career practitioners balancing clinical demands with family life, and veteran physicians carrying decades of experiences that challenge the boundaries of conventional medicine. Burnout touches all of them differently, but a common thread runs through: the desire to remember why they chose medicine in the first place, and the rare but profound moments that remind them.
Physician Burnout by Specialty
Percentage reporting at least one symptom (Medscape, 2024)
Medical Fact
Patients who laugh regularly have 40% lower levels of stress hormones compared to those who rarely laugh.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Glen, Lisbon
Midwest NDE researchers near Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region benefit from a regional culture that values common sense over theoretical purity. While East Coast academics debate whether NDEs constitute evidence for consciousness surviving death, Midwest clinicians focus on the practical question: how does this experience affect the patient sitting in front of me? This pragmatic orientation produces research that is less philosophically ambitious but more clinically useful.
The University of Michigan's consciousness research program has produced findings that challenge the assumption that brain death means consciousness death. Physicians near Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region who follow this research know that the EEG surge observed in dying brains—a burst of organized electrical activity in the final moments—may represent the physiological correlate of the NDE. The dying brain isn't shutting down; it's lighting up.
Medical Fact
Walking 30 minutes per day reduces the risk of heart disease by 19% and the risk of stroke by 27%.
Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Glen, Lisbon
Hospital gardens near Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region planted by volunteers from the Master Gardener program provide healing spaces that cost almost nothing but deliver measurable benefits. Patients who spend time in these gardens show lower blood pressure, reduced pain medication needs, and shorter hospital stays. The Midwest's agricultural expertise, applied to hospital landscaping, produces therapeutic landscapes that pharmaceutical companies cannot replicate.
Farming community resilience near Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region is a medical resource that no pharmaceutical company can patent. The farmer who breaks an arm during harvest doesn't have the luxury of rest—and that determined functionality, while medically suboptimal, reflects a spirit that accelerates healing through sheer will. Midwest physicians learn to work with this resilience rather than against it.
Did You Know?
Approximately 65% of all emergency department visits in the U.S. occur during evenings, nights, and weekends.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region
The Midwest's tradition of bedside Bibles near Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region—placed by the Gideons in hotel rooms and hospital nightstands since 1899—represents a passive faith-medicine intervention whose impact is impossible to quantify. The patient who opens a Gideon Bible at 3 AM during a sleepless, pain-filled night and finds comfort in the Psalms is receiving spiritual care delivered by a book placed there by a stranger who believed it would matter.
Scandinavian immigrant communities near Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region brought a Lutheran tradition of sisu—a Finnish concept of inner strength and endurance—that shapes how patients approach illness and recovery. The Midwest patient who refuses pain medication, insists on walking the day after surgery, and apologizes for being a burden isn't being difficult. They're practicing a faith-inflected stoicism that their grandparents brought from Helsinki.
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Did You Know?
The first medical journal, Le Journal des Sçavans, was published in France in 1665.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
Did You Know?
Dr. Kolbaba often emphasizes that the book is not about proving the existence of God but about sharing authentic physician experiences.
Lisbon: Where History, Medicine, and the Supernatural Converge
Lisbon's supernatural traditions are deeply shaped by the 1755 earthquake—one of the deadliest in European history—which occurred on All Saints' Day while churches were filled and candles were lit, triggering a catastrophic fire and tsunami. The disaster profoundly influenced European philosophy (inspiring Voltaire's Candide) and created layers of ghost stories in a city rebuilt atop its dead. Portuguese folklore includes the moura encantada (enchanted Moorish woman), spirits connected to pre-Christian traditions, and the belief in bruxas (witches). The Fado music tradition, born in Lisbon's working-class neighborhoods, expresses saudade—a deep, melancholic longing for what is lost—including the dead. The Alfama district, Lisbon's oldest neighborhood, survived the earthquake and is rich with ghost stories. Portuguese maritime tradition includes numerous tales of phantom ships and cursed voyages.
Lisbon's medical history is marked by the catastrophic earthquake of 1755, which not only destroyed much of the city—including the Hospital Real de Todos os Santos (founded 1492)—but also catalyzed advances in emergency medicine and public health. The Portuguese were pioneers in tropical medicine due to their colonial empire, establishing the Lisbon School of Tropical Medicine in 1902. Egas Moniz, a Portuguese neurologist working in Lisbon, won the Nobel Prize in 1949 for developing the prefrontal leucotomy (lobotomy)—an achievement now regarded with significant ethical controversy. Portugal's progressive drug decriminalization policy, implemented in 2001 and administered through health-centered approaches from Lisbon, has been internationally recognized as a groundbreaking public health experiment.
About the Book
The book has sold particularly well in communities dealing with grief, terminal illness, and existential questions about death.
Notable Locations in Lisbon
São Jorge Castle: This Moorish castle overlooking Lisbon, dating to the 11th century, is said to be haunted by the ghosts of soldiers from its many sieges and conquests, with visitors reporting armored apparitions and the sounds of battle on the ramparts at night.
Carmo Convent Ruins: Destroyed in the devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake and tsunami that killed an estimated 30,000-50,000 people, the roofless Gothic ruins of the Carmo Convent are considered a haunted memorial to one of history's deadliest natural disasters.
Sintra's Quinta da Regaleira: This early 20th-century estate near Lisbon, with its initiation wells, grottoes, and Masonic symbolism, is surrounded by supernatural legends and is said to be connected to occult rituals performed by its original owner.
Hospital de São José: Founded as the Hospital Real de Todos os Santos (All Saints Royal Hospital) in 1492, this is one of the oldest hospitals in Portugal; after the 1755 earthquake destroyed the original building, it was relocated and renamed, continuing to serve Lisbon for over 530 years.
Hospital de Santa Maria: Opened in 1953, Santa Maria is the largest hospital in Portugal and the main teaching hospital of the University of Lisbon Medical School, serving as the country's primary referral center.
About the Book
He was named "Top Doctor" in Internal Medicine by Chicago Magazine and a Castle Connolly Top Doctor.
How This Book Can Help You
The Midwest's culture of minding one's own business near Glen, Lisbon, Lisbon Region means that many physicians have kept extraordinary experiences private for decades. This book creates a crack in that wall of privacy—not by demanding disclosure, but by demonstrating that disclosure is safe, that the profession can handle these accounts, and that sharing them serves the patients who will have similar experiences and need to know they're not alone.

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Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
Research Finding
Compassion training programs for healthcare workers reduce emotional exhaustion and increase job satisfaction within 8 weeks.
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Discover the Stories Medicine Never Says Out Loud
Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5 stars from 1018 readers.
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