Miracles, Mysteries & Medicine in Frontier, Seoul

In Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan, as in every community, families entrust their most vulnerable moments to physicians — the birth of a child, the diagnosis that changes everything, the final hours of a life well lived. What families may not know is that during those final hours, physicians themselves sometimes witness phenomena that reshape their understanding of existence. Physicians' Untold Stories captures these moments with the precision and humility they deserve. Dr. Scott Kolbaba has gathered accounts that range from the quietly moving to the breathtakingly strange, all united by their source: credible medical professionals who had nothing to gain and everything to lose by sharing what they saw. For Frontier, Seoul readers, this book is an invitation to consider that love might be stronger than death.

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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"Chicken Soup for Doctor's Souls." — Mary Ellen M.

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Medical Fact

Phantom limb pain affects about 80% of amputees — the brain continues to map sensation to the missing limb.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Frontier, Seoul

Physicians practicing in Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan 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 Frontier, Seoul 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 Frontier, Seoul 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

Hiccups are caused by involuntary contractions of the diaphragm — the longest recorded case lasted 68 years.

Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Frontier, Seoul

Midwest physicians near Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan who've had their own NDEs—during cardiac events, surgical complications, or accidents—describe a professional transformation that the research literature calls 'the experiencer physician effect.' These doctors become more patient-centered, more comfortable with ambiguity, and more willing to sit with dying patients. Their NDE doesn't make them less scientific; it makes them more fully human.

Midwest emergency medical services near Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan cover vast rural distances, and the extended transport times create conditions where NDEs may be more likely. A patient in cardiac arrest who receives CPR in a cornfield for forty-five minutes before reaching the hospital has a different experience than one who arrests in an urban ED. The temporal spaciousness of rural resuscitation may allow NDE phenomena to develop more fully.

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Medical Fact

The thymus gland, critical to immune system development in children, shrinks significantly after puberty and is nearly gone by adulthood.

Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Frontier, Seoul

The Midwest's ethic of reciprocity near Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan—the expectation that help given will be help returned—creates a healthcare safety net that operates entirely outside the formal system. When a farmer near Frontier, Seoul pays for his neighbor's hip replacement with free corn for a year, he's participating in an informal economy of care that has sustained Midwest communities since the first homesteaders needed someone to help pull a stump.

Physical therapy in the Midwest near Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan often incorporates the functional movements that patients need to return to their lives—lifting hay bales, climbing into tractor cabs, carrying feed sacks. Rehabilitation that prepares a patient for the actual demands of their daily life is more motivating and more effective than abstract exercises performed on gym equipment. Midwest PT is practical by nature.

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Did You Know?

Hospitals produce an average of 29 pounds of waste per patient per day — making healthcare one of the most waste-intensive industries.

Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan

The Midwest's tradition of saying grace over hospital meals near Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan seems trivial until you consider its cumulative effect. Three times a day, a patient pauses to acknowledge gratitude, connection, and hope. Over a week-long hospital stay, that's twenty-one moments of spiritual centering—a dosing schedule more frequent than most medications. Grace is medicine administered at meal intervals.

The Midwest's German Baptist Brethren communities near Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan practice anointing of the sick with oil as described in the Epistle of James—a ritual that combines confession, communal prayer, and physical touch in a healing ceremony that predates modern medicine by two millennia. Physicians who witness this anointing observe its effects: reduced anxiety, improved pain tolerance, and a peace that medical interventions alone cannot produce.

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Did You Know?

The human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds, each containing 50-100 taste receptor cells.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

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Did You Know?

Dr. Kolbaba has noted that the book's most skeptical readers often become its strongest advocates after finishing it.

Seoul: Where History, Medicine, and the Supernatural Converge

Korean supernatural tradition is rich and deeply influential on modern pop culture. Gwisin (ghosts) in Korean folklore are most commonly female spirits in white—often women who died with han (a deep, unresolved grievance)—and their stories have fueled Korea's internationally acclaimed horror film industry. The concept of han is central to understanding Korean ghost stories: it is a uniquely Korean emotion combining grief, resentment, and longing that ties spirits to the mortal world. Shamanism (musok) remains surprisingly prevalent in modern Seoul, with mudang (shamans) performing gut rituals to communicate with spirits, placate the dead, and heal the living. Seodaemun Prison, where Japanese colonial authorities tortured Korean patriots, is considered one of Korea's most spiritually charged locations. The annual tradition of Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) includes elaborate ancestor veneration rituals called charye.

Seoul's medical transformation is one of the most dramatic in modern history. In 1885, when American missionary physician Horace N. Allen founded the Gwanghyewon (now Severance Hospital), Korea had no modern medical infrastructure. Within a century, South Korea built one of the world's most advanced healthcare systems. Korean traditional medicine (hanbang), based on herbal remedies, acupuncture, and moxibustion, continues to be practiced alongside Western medicine and is covered by the national health insurance system. Seoul is now a global hub for medical tourism, particularly for plastic surgery, with the Gangnam district alone housing over 500 clinics. South Korea's rapid development of testing and contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic drew worldwide admiration.

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About the Book

The book includes a chapter about a physician who was an avowed atheist and whose experience fundamentally changed his worldview.

Notable Locations in Seoul

Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital: This abandoned mental hospital in Gwangju, near Seoul, was named one of the 'freakiest places on the planet' by CNN Travel, with visitors reporting ghostly patients, slamming doors, and a pervasive sense of dread throughout the decaying building.

Yeongdeok Haunted House (Yeongdeungpo): Several abandoned buildings in Seoul's older neighborhoods are reputed to be haunted, with Korean ghost stories (gwisin) featuring prominently—the most common being female ghosts in white hanbok (traditional dress) with long black hair.

Seodaemun Prison: This colonial-era prison, built by the Japanese in 1908 and used to imprison and torture Korean independence fighters, is now a museum where visitors report hearing screams, seeing apparitions, and feeling intense emotional distress in the torture chambers.

Severance Hospital (Yonsei University): Founded in 1885 by American missionary Horace N. Allen as Korea's first Western-style hospital (Gwanghyewon), Severance is one of South Korea's most prestigious medical institutions and played a pivotal role in introducing modern medicine to Korea.

Samsung Medical Center: Opened in 1994, Samsung Medical Center is one of South Korea's largest and most technologically advanced hospitals, a leader in cancer treatment, organ transplantation, and robotic surgery.

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About the Book

The book has been featured on over 50 podcast and radio programs, reaching millions of listeners worldwide.

How This Book Can Help You

For Midwest physicians near Frontier, Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan who've maintained a private practice of prayer—before surgeries, during codes, at deathbeds—this book legitimizes what they've always done in secret. The separation of faith and medicine that professional culture demands is, for many heartland doctors, a performed atheism that doesn't match their inner life. This book says what they've been thinking: the sacred is present in the clinical, whether we acknowledge it or not.

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

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Research Finding

Walking 30 minutes per day reduces the risk of heart disease by 19% and the risk of stroke by 27%.

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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