
When Doctors Near Eaglewood, Miami Witness the Impossible
Every hospital in Eaglewood, Miami, Florida has rooms that staff prefer not to enter alone—rooms where equipment malfunctions with suspicious regularity, where patients report identical experiences without communication, where the atmosphere carries a quality that no HVAC system can explain. "Physicians' Untold Stories" by Dr. Scott Kolbaba approaches these phenomena not with the breathless excitement of paranormal entertainment but with the measured curiosity of a physician who recognizes that unexplained is not the same as unexplainable. The book presents accounts from medical professionals who witnessed phenomena in these environments that their training could not account for, challenging readers to consider whether our hospitals harbor dimensions of reality that our instruments have not been designed to detect.

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
The human genome contains roughly 3 billion base pairs — if printed, it would fill about 262,000 pages.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Eaglewood, Miami
Physicians practicing in Eaglewood, Miami, 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 Eaglewood, Miami 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 Eaglewood, Miami 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
The human body maintains its temperature at 98.6°F (37°C), but recent studies suggest the average has dropped to about 97.9°F.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Eaglewood, Miami, Florida
The Southeast's tradition of 'dinner on the grounds'—communal church meals near Eaglewood, Miami, Florida—has been adapted by healthcare programs that combine nutrition education with fellowship. Physicians who partner with churches to serve healthy meals after services reach patients who would never attend a hospital-based nutrition class. The church table becomes the treatment table, and the healing happens between bites of new-recipe collard greens.
The African American church near Eaglewood, Miami, Florida has been the backbone of community health for as long as Black communities have existed in the South. The pastor who leads a diabetes prevention program from the pulpit, the deaconess who organizes blood drives, the choir director who screens for hypertension during rehearsals—these are faith-based public health workers whose impact exceeds that of many funded programs.
Medical Fact
The body's immune system can distinguish between millions of different antigens — more variety than any library catalog.
Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Eaglewood, Miami, Florida
Old Southern military hospitals near Eaglewood, Miami, Florida were designed with wide verandas to promote air circulation in the pre-air-conditioning era. These porches are the settings for some of the most poignant ghost stories in Southern medicine: wounded soldiers rocking in chairs that creak on the wooden boards, watching the sunset, waiting for a healing that never came in life and now continues in perpetuity.
Antebellum hospitals across the Deep South were built on the labor of enslaved people, and the spirits that linger near Eaglewood, Miami, Florida carry that history in their very form. Night-shift nurses have reported seeing figures in rough-spun clothing tending to patients—performing the caregiving work in death that was forced upon them in life. These aren't frightening apparitions; they're heartbreaking ones.
Did You Know?
Hospitals are among the most haunted buildings in folklore worldwide — and the physician testimonies in this book suggest there may be a reason.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Eaglewood, Miami
The Southeast's tradition of storytelling—porch stories, fish stories, hunting stories—provides a cultural infrastructure near Eaglewood, Miami, Florida for transmitting NDE accounts in ways that other regions lack. When a farmer in the barbershop tells his neighbors about his NDE during a tractor accident, the story enters the community's oral history and is retold with the same fidelity that characterizes Southern storytelling across generations.
Southern faith traditions create a cultural context near Eaglewood, Miami, Florida where NDE reports are received with far less skepticism than in other regions. When a Baptist grandmother describes meeting Jesus during a cardiac arrest, her family doesn't question her sanity—they praise God. This cultural receptivity means that Southern physicians have access to NDE accounts that patients in more secular regions might suppress.
Near-Death Experience Features
Percentage reporting each feature (van Lommel et al., 2001)
Did You Know?
The white coat ceremony, now held at nearly every U.S. medical school, was first introduced at Columbia University in 1993.
Miami: Where History, Medicine, and the Supernatural Converge
Miami's supernatural landscape reflects its multicultural character, blending Afro-Caribbean spiritual traditions with Latin American folk beliefs. Santería, brought by Cuban immigrants, is widely practiced in Miami, with 'santeros' and 'santeras' performing rituals invoking Yoruba orishas (deities) for healing, protection, and divination. Haitian Vodou is also practiced in the city's Little Haiti neighborhood, where 'houngans' and 'mambos' (priests and priestesses) maintain spiritual traditions brought from Haiti. The Cuban tradition of 'espiritismo' (spiritism), blending Catholicism with African spirit worship, is practiced in many Miami homes. The Deering Estate, built over a 10,000-year-old Tequesta burial mound, is considered one of the most spiritually active sites in South Florida. The Biltmore Hotel's 13th floor, scene of a notorious gangland murder and later a VA hospital where soldiers died, is a paranormal hotspot investigated by multiple ghost-hunting teams.
Miami's medical landscape is shaped by its unique position as a tropical American city and gateway to Latin America. Jackson Memorial Hospital, one of the largest public hospitals in the US, serves an extraordinarily diverse patient population representing over 100 nations and languages. The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has been a leader in ophthalmology (the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute is consistently ranked #1 in the nation), tropical medicine, and hurricane-related trauma care. Miami's proximity to the Caribbean has made it a center for treating tropical diseases rarely seen elsewhere in the US. The Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial is one of the busiest trauma centers in the world, treating victims of everything from hurricane injuries to mass shooting events, including the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting victims.
Did You Know?
Dr. Kolbaba found that physicians who acknowledged the limits of medical science were often the most respected by their patients.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
About the Book
Dr. Kolbaba completed his residency at both Rush Presbyterian-Saint Luke's Medical Center and the Mayo Clinic.
Notable Locations in Miami
Biltmore Hotel: This 1926 Coral Gables landmark, where gangster Thomas 'Fatty' Walsh was murdered during a gambling dispute on the 13th floor, is reportedly haunted by Walsh and by the ghosts of soldiers who died when it served as a VA hospital during World War II.
Deering Estate: This 1922 estate on Biscayne Bay, built on land that contains a Native American burial mound dating back 10,000 years, is considered haunted by indigenous spirits and the ghosts of the Deering family.
Miami City Cemetery: Established in 1897, it is the oldest cemetery in Miami and is reputed to be haunted, with visitors reporting shadowy figures and unexplained cold spots among the historic graves.
Jackson Memorial Hospital: Founded in 1918, it is one of the largest public hospitals in the United States, the primary teaching hospital for the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and the only adult and pediatric Level I trauma center in Miami-Dade County.
University of Miami Health System: Part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, this system has pioneered research in ophthalmology, neuroscience, and tropical medicine, leveraging Miami's position as a gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean.
About the Book
Dr. Kolbaba practices internal medicine at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Illinois.
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.
Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
Research Finding
Bibliotherapy — prescribing books for mental health — has been shown to be as effective as face-to-face therapy for mild depression.
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.
Research Finding
A single session of moderate exercise improves executive function and working memory for up to 2 hours afterward.
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.
“What makes these accounts remarkable is not just the events themselves, but the credibility of the evidence-based physicians who reported them.”
— Physicians' Untold Stories
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.
Hospice workers across the Southeast near Eaglewood, Miami, Florida will recognize every account in this book. They've been seeing these phenomena for years—the terminal lucidity, the deathbed visitors, the rooms that change temperature when a soul departs. The difference is that hospice workers rarely have the professional platform to publish their observations. This book gives voice to what they've always known.

Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
“Dr. Kolbaba, a Mayo Clinic-trained internist, spent three years interviewing physicians who came forward with experiences they had never told anyone.”
— Physicians' Untold Stories
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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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