Real Physicians. Real Stories. Real Miracles Near Sherman, Kissimmee

In Sherman, Kissimmee's teaching hospitals, medical students learn to construct differential diagnoses, to follow diagnostic algorithms, to trust the data. But no algorithm accounts for the patient who recovers from an illness that no treatment can cure. Dr. Scott Kolbaba's "Physicians' Untold Stories" fills this gap in medical education, offering real cases that demonstrate the limits of current knowledge. These are not cautionary tales or exercises in humility for its own sake. They are invitations to expand the scope of medical inquiry — to ask not only "How does disease progress?" but also "How does healing happen when we least expect it?" For medical professionals and patients throughout Florida, this question may be the most important one medicine has yet to answer.

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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"What an inspirational time… I was gratified by the unusually good turn-out and the comments received afterwards." — D.H., Presbyterian Minister

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Medical Fact

A full bladder is roughly the size of a softball and can hold about 16 ounces of urine.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Sherman, Kissimmee

Physicians practicing in Sherman, Kissimmee, Florida 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 Sherman, Kissimmee 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 Sherman, Kissimmee 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

The first use of rubber gloves during surgery was at Johns Hopkins in 1890, initially to protect a nurse's hands from harsh disinfectants.

Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Sherman, Kissimmee, Florida

Tobacco Road poverty and the medical neglect it produced created ghosts near Sherman, Kissimmee, Florida that are less theatrical and more tragic than the aristocratic spirits of plantation lore. These are the specters of sharecroppers who died of pellagra, children who perished from hookworm, women who bled to death in childbirth because the nearest doctor was fifty miles away. Their hauntings are quiet—just a footstep, a cough, a baby's cry.

Freedmen's Bureau hospitals, established after the Civil War to serve formerly enslaved people, operated near Sherman, Kissimmee, Florida in conditions of extreme scarcity and hostility. The physicians who staffed them—some idealistic, some incompetent, all underfunded—left behind ghosts of effort rather than ghosts of malice. Night workers in buildings on former Bureau sites report the sound of someone wrapping bandages with determined efficiency.

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Medical Fact

Taste buds have a lifespan of only about 10 days before they are replaced by new ones.

Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Sherman, Kissimmee

Drowning NDEs along the Southeast's rivers, lakes, and coastline near Sherman, Kissimmee, Florida represent a distinct subcategory of the phenomenon. These water-related NDEs frequently include a specific element absent from cardiac-arrest NDEs: a period of profound peace while submerged, a sensation of the water becoming warm and luminous, and an experience of breathing underwater as if the lungs had found a medium they were designed for.

Rural clergy near Sherman, Kissimmee, Florida often serve as the first confidants for NDE experiencers, hearing accounts that patients are reluctant to share with physicians. These pastors, who know their congregants intimately, can distinguish between a genuine NDE report and a bid for attention. Their observations—largely uncollected by researchers—represent a vast, untapped dataset about the prevalence and character of NDEs in the rural Southeast.

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Did You Know?

Dr. Kolbaba found that physicians who acknowledged their unexplained experiences reported greater professional satisfaction.

Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Sherman, Kissimmee

The Southeast's quilting tradition near Sherman, Kissimmee, Florida has been adopted by hospital rehabilitation programs as an occupational therapy tool. The fine motor skills required for quilting rebuild dexterity after stroke or surgery, while the creative satisfaction of producing something beautiful provides psychological motivation that repetitive exercises cannot. Each stitch is a step toward recovery; each finished quilt is a declaration of capability.

Recovery in the Southeast near Sherman, Kissimmee, Florida is measured not just in lab values and functional scores but in the ability to resume the activities that define Southern life: cooking Sunday dinner, tending the garden, sitting on the porch, going to church. Physicians who understand this broader definition of healing set recovery goals that motivate their patients far more effectively than abstract benchmarks. A woman isn't well when her numbers normalize—she's well when she can make her biscuits again.

Physician Burnout by Specialty

Percentage reporting at least one symptom (Medscape, 2024)

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Did You Know?

The word "physician" comes from the Greek "physis" meaning nature — a physician was originally one who understood the nature of things.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

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Did You Know?

The word "doctor" comes from the Latin "docere," meaning "to teach" — a physician was originally a teacher of health.

Medical Heritage in Florida

Florida's medical history is marked by its transformation from a tropical frontier plagued by yellow fever and malaria into a modern healthcare powerhouse. Dr. John Gorrie of Apalachicola invented the ice-making machine in the 1840s while trying to cool the rooms of yellow fever patients, a breakthrough that laid the foundation for air conditioning and modern refrigeration. Tampa General Hospital, established in 1927, and Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, founded in 1918, became major teaching hospitals. The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, established in 1952, became a leader in organ transplantation research.

Florida's unique demographics drove medical innovation. The Mayo Clinic's Jacksonville campus, opened in 1986, brought world-class care to the Southeast. The Moffitt Cancer Center at the University of South Florida in Tampa, established in 1986, became an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. In Palm Beach County, the Scripps Research Institute's Florida campus brought biomedical research south. Florida's large elderly population made the state a natural laboratory for geriatric medicine, and the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis at the University of Miami, founded in 1985 after NFL player Nick Buoniconti's son was paralyzed, became the world's largest spinal cord injury research center.

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About the Book

Kirkus Reviews called the book "a feel-good book of hope and wonder."

Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Florida

Florida's supernatural folklore blends Seminole legends, Spanish colonial ghosts, and the eerie atmosphere of its swamps and coastline. The legend of the Skunk Ape, Florida's version of Bigfoot, has persisted in the Everglades since the 1960s, with sightings concentrated around the Big Cypress Swamp and a dedicated 'Skunk Ape Research Headquarters' in Ochopee. The St. Augustine Lighthouse, built in 1874, is one of the most investigated haunted sites in America, with a documented history of sightings of two girls who drowned in 1873 when a supply cart rolled into the ocean.

The Don CeSar Hotel in St. Pete Beach, a pink palace built in 1928, is said to be haunted by its builder Thomas Rowe and his lost love Lucinda, a Spanish opera singer—their apparitions have reportedly been seen walking hand in hand on the beach. The Devil's Chair in Cassadaga's Lake Helen cemetery is a brick chair where, legend holds, the Devil will appear to anyone who sits there at midnight. The town of Cassadaga itself, founded in 1894 as a Spiritualist community, remains home to practicing mediums and psychics. In Key West, Robert the Doll—a child's doll kept at the East Martello Museum—is blamed for misfortune befalling anyone who photographs him without permission.

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About the Book

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

Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Florida

G. Pierce Wood Memorial Hospital (Arcadia): This state psychiatric hospital in DeSoto County operated from 1947 to 2002, treating patients with severe mental illness. During its operation, staff reported hearing disembodied screams from the older wards, seeing patients who had died years earlier walking the grounds, and encountering a persistent cold spot in the hallway of Building 23 where several patients had died.

Sunland Hospital (various Florida locations): Florida operated multiple Sunland Training Centers for the developmentally disabled throughout the state, including facilities in Tallahassee, Orlando, and Fort Myers. The Tallahassee location, which closed in 1983, was investigated for patient abuse and unexplained deaths. The abandoned building became notorious among paranormal investigators for reports of children's voices, wheelchair sounds rolling down empty hallways, and doors opening and closing throughout the night.

Types of Phenomena in the Book

Distribution across 26 physician accounts

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Research Finding

A daily 15-minute laughter session has been shown to improve vascular function by 22% in patients with cardiovascular disease.

How This Book Can Help You

Florida's enormous and diverse medical community—spanning Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, Moffitt Cancer Center, and the University of Miami—creates a vast population of physicians who encounter the kind of inexplicable bedside moments Dr. Kolbaba documents in Physicians' Untold Stories. The state's position as a destination for aging Americans means Florida physicians routinely attend to patients at life's end, making deathbed phenomena a more common part of clinical experience here than in many other states. The cultural richness of Florida's communities, from Spiritualist Cassadaga to Little Havana's deep Catholic faith, provides a tapestry of beliefs about the afterlife that contextualizes the experiences Dr. Kolbaba describes.

Southern medical schools near Sherman, Kissimmee, Florida could use this book as a teaching tool in palliative care and medical humanities courses. The accounts it contains illustrate the limits of the biomedical model in ways that are impossible to teach through lectures alone. When students read a colleague's honest account of encountering the inexplicable, their education expands in a direction that textbooks cannot provide.

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