When Doctors Near Redwood, Lisbon Witness the Impossible

The phrase "death with dignity" has become a slogan, but the physician accounts in Physicians' Untold Stories reveal what dignity at the end of life actually looks like. In Redwood, Lisbon, Lisbon Region, readers are encountering descriptions of dying patients who experienced a peace and a clarity that dignified not only their own deaths but the grief of everyone around them. Dr. Kolbaba's collection suggests that dignity at death may include dimensions that we don't typically consider: the joy of reunion with deceased loved ones, the calm of perceiving a reality beyond the physical, and the love that seems to bridge the gap between the living and the dead.

Dr. Scott Kolbaba

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.

Book cover

Physicians' Untold Stories

by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD4.5 stars (1018 reviews)

Miraculous experiences doctors are hesitant to share with their patients, or ANYONE!

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Meant to awe, instruct, and inspire — stories that will convince even the harshest skeptic. — From the introduction to Physicians' Untold Stories

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Medical Fact

A sneeze travels at approximately 100 miles per hour and can send 100,000 germs into the air.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Redwood, Lisbon

Physicians practicing in Redwood, 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 Redwood, 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 Redwood, 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)

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Medical Fact

Medical school admission rates at top schools can be as low as 3% — more competitive than Ivy League universities.

Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Redwood, Lisbon

Midwest NDE researchers near Redwood, 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 Redwood, 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.

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Medical Fact

Red blood cells complete a full circuit of the body in about 20 seconds.

Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Redwood, Lisbon

Hospital gardens near Redwood, 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 Redwood, 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.

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Did You Know?

Dr. Kolbaba discovered that pediatricians were particularly affected by their experiences — children's stories carried a unique emotional weight.

Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Redwood, Lisbon, Lisbon Region

The Midwest's tradition of bedside Bibles near Redwood, 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 Redwood, 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 human body maintains over 20 different types of receptors for pain alone, each responding to different stimuli.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

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Did You Know?

Dr. Kolbaba observed that the physicians' stories shared common elements regardless of the doctor's specialty or beliefs.

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.

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About the Book

Many physicians told Dr. Kolbaba that they had never shared their stories before — not even with spouses.

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.

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About the Book

The book is often recommended by hospice workers and grief counselors to families struggling with loss.

How This Book Can Help You

The Midwest's culture of minding one's own business near Redwood, 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.

Physicians' Untold Stories book cover — by Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba, MD

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Research Finding

A study in Psychosomatic Medicine found that optimism is associated with a 35% lower risk of cardiovascular events.

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Discover the Stories Medicine Never Says Out Loud

Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD4.5 stars from 1018 readers.

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Physicians' Untold Stories by Dr. Scott Kolbaba

Amazon Bestseller

The Stories Medicine Never Told You

Over 200 physicians interviewed. 26 true stories of ghost encounters, near-death experiences, and miraculous recoveries that will change the way you think about life, death, and what lies beyond.

By Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5★ from 1,018 ratings on Goodreads