True Stories From the Hospitals of Serenity, Lewiston

Sympathetic phenomena between patients—instances in which one patient's clinical status appears to mirror or respond to that of another patient with no physiological connection—represent one of the most puzzling categories of unexplained medical events. Physicians in Serenity, Lewiston, Maine have reported cases in which unrelated patients in adjacent rooms experienced simultaneous cardiac events, in which a patient's pain resolved at the exact moment another patient died, and in which twins separated by miles experienced identical symptoms at identical times. "Physicians' Untold Stories" by Dr. Scott Kolbaba documents these sympathetic phenomena with the clinical specificity required to distinguish them from coincidence. The accounts challenge the assumption that patients are biologically isolated units, suggesting instead that consciousness—or some as-yet-unidentified biological field—may connect individuals in ways that medical science has not yet mapped.

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!

Order on Amazon →

"I shivered. I cried. I read some out loud to the spouse. Please write more." — Amazon Review

🔬

Medical Fact

A study found that hospitals with more greenery and natural light have patients who recover faster and require less pain medication.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Serenity, Lewiston

Physicians practicing in Serenity, Lewiston, Maine 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 Serenity, Lewiston 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 Serenity, Lewiston 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

Nerve impulses travel at speeds up to 268 miles per hour — faster than a Formula 1 race car.

Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Serenity, Lewiston, Maine

The old New England tradition of deathbed watches has evolved into something unexpected in modern Serenity, Lewiston, Maine hospitals. Where Puritan families once gathered to witness the soul's departure, today's medical teams report the same phenomena their ancestors described—sudden drops in room temperature, the scent of flowers with no source, and the unmistakable feeling of a presence departing upward.

The garment district tragedies and tenement fires of the early 1900s created a reservoir of unresolved grief that still surfaces in Serenity, Lewiston, Maine hospitals. Emergency physicians describe treating patients who arrive with burns that exactly mirror those of Triangle Shirtwaist victims, only to find no fire, no burns, and no patient when they look again. The city remembers what the living try to forget.

🔬

Medical Fact

Your body has enough DNA to stretch from the Earth to the Sun and back over 600 times.

Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Serenity, Lewiston

Northeast academic medical centers have historically been the gatekeepers of scientific legitimacy in American medicine. When a cardiologist at a teaching hospital near Serenity, Lewiston, Maine takes a patient's NDE account seriously enough to document it in a chart note, that act carries institutional weight. The Northeast's medical establishment is slowly acknowledging what patients have been saying for decades.

Anesthesiologists in Serenity, Lewiston, Maine occupy a peculiar position in the NDE debate. They are the physicians most intimately familiar with the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness, and they know that boundary is far less clear than the public imagines. Reports of intraoperative awareness—patients describing surgical details while under general anesthesia—share features with NDEs that neither discipline fully explains.

💡

Did You Know?

The average medical textbook is updated every 5-7 years, but medical knowledge doubles approximately every 73 days.

Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Serenity, Lewiston

The immigrant communities that built the Northeast brought not only labor but rich healing traditions to hospitals near Serenity, Lewiston, Maine. Italian nonne with herbal remedies, Irish grandmothers with poultice recipes, Jewish bubbies with chicken soup prescriptions—these weren't superseded by modern medicine so much as absorbed into it. The best Northeast physicians know that healing has many valid sources.

Rehabilitation centers near Serenity, Lewiston, Maine are places where hope is tested and rebuilt daily. A patient who lost a limb learns to walk again. A stroke survivor relearns the alphabet. A burn victim looks in a mirror. The therapists who guide these journeys know that physical recovery is only half the work—the other half is helping patients reimagine what their lives can be.

Physician Burnout by Specialty

Percentage reporting at least one symptom (Medscape, 2024)

💡

Did You Know?

Medical school students in the U.S. typically complete over 5,000 hours of clinical rotations before graduating.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

💡

Did You Know?

Dr. Kolbaba's research suggests that extraordinary experiences are not limited to any single medical specialty — they span all fields.

Medical Heritage in Maine

Maine's medical history reflects the challenges of providing care in a rural, geographically isolated state. The Maine Medical Center in Portland, founded in 1874, grew into the state's largest hospital and a Level I trauma center serving the northern New England region. Bowdoin College's Medical School of Maine, which operated from 1820 to 1921, trained physicians for the state's rural communities; its most famous graduate was Dr. Isaac Lincoln, who practiced frontier medicine in the state's northern lumber camps.

The Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor (now Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center) served the vast rural expanses of northern Maine. Dr. Israel T. Dana, a Civil War surgeon who later became dean of the Maine Medical School at Bowdoin, was instrumental in modernizing medical education in the state. Maine's long coastline and maritime industry produced specialized maritime medicine, with the U.S. Marine Hospital in Portland treating sailors and fishermen. Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, founded in 1929, became one of the world's foremost genetics research institutions, playing a critical role in the development of mouse models for cancer research and contributing to the Human Genome Project.

📖

About the Book

Several physicians in the book describe their experience as the most significant event of their medical career.

Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Maine

Maine's supernatural folklore draws from its harsh coastal environment, dense forests, and the literary imagination of Stephen King, who has set dozens of horror novels in fictionalized versions of Maine towns. The real Maine is equally rich in ghost lore. Seguin Island Lighthouse, built in 1795, is said to be haunted by the ghost of a lighthouse keeper's wife who went mad from isolation and was murdered by her husband with an axe—visitors report hearing piano music drifting across the water. Wood Island Lighthouse near Biddeford Pool is haunted by the ghost of a lobsterman who killed a tenant and then himself in 1896.

The town of Bucksport is home to the 'Witch's Foot' legend: Colonel Jonathan Buck, the town's founder, is said to have been cursed by a woman he sentenced to death for witchcraft—a leg-shaped stain has appeared and reappeared on his tombstone despite repeated cleanings. Fort Knox (Maine's, not Kentucky's) in Prospect is considered one of the most haunted military installations in New England, with reports of soldiers' ghosts, disembodied voices, and cold spots throughout the casemates. In the North Woods, legends of the Specter Moose—an enormous, ghostly white moose—have been reported by hunters and loggers since the 1800s.

📖

About the Book

Dr. Kolbaba has seven children, including two adopted from Romania, and frequently credits his family as his greatest inspiration.

Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Maine

Fort Popham Hospital Station (Phippsburg): The Civil War-era fort at the mouth of the Kennebec River included a hospital station for injured soldiers. The unfinished granite fort, combined with the harsh Maine coastal weather, creates an atmosphere of foreboding. Visitors report hearing the sounds of men in pain, seeing spectral soldiers walking the parapets, and encountering cold spots in the casemates that served as hospital wards.

Augusta Mental Health Institute (Augusta): Originally the Maine Insane Hospital, established in 1840, this facility treated the mentally ill for over 160 years. The Kirkbride-plan building, designed by Thomas Story Kirkbride himself, housed patients through eras of restraints, ice baths, and lobotomies. The underground tunnel system connecting the buildings is said to be the most haunted area, with former staff reporting disembodied voices, shadowy figures, and a pervasive sense of dread. A cemetery on the grounds holds hundreds of unmarked patient graves.

Types of Phenomena in the Book

Distribution across 26 physician accounts

📊

Research Finding

Physicians who take at least one week of vacation per year have 25% lower rates of burnout than those who do not.

How This Book Can Help You

Maine's medical community—where physicians at Maine Medical Center and in rural practices serve communities spread across a state nearly the size of the other five New England states combined—creates the kind of intimate, isolated practice settings where the experiences in Physicians' Untold Stories feel most genuine. The state that inspired Stephen King's fictional horrors also produces real physicians who encounter the medically inexplicable in their daily practice. Dr. Kolbaba's documentation of miraculous recoveries and deathbed phenomena resonates in Maine, where physicians often serve as the sole medical provider for remote communities, building the deep patient relationships that make witnessing the unexplainable both profound and unavoidable.

The Northeast's medical ethics community near Serenity, Lewiston, Maine will find in this book a practical challenge: how should ethics committees handle cases where a patient's treatment decisions are influenced by an NDE or a ghostly encounter? These aren't hypothetical scenarios. They happen in real hospitals, and the current ethical frameworks aren't equipped to address them.

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

Research Finding

Emotional support during medical procedures reduces cortisol levels by 25% and decreases perceived pain intensity.

Free Interactive Wellness Tools

Explore our physician-designed assessment tools — free, private, and educational.

Other Neighborhoods in Lewiston

Nearby Cities

Explore Other Countries

Related Reading

Frequently Asked Questions

Discover the Stories Medicine Never Says Out Loud

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

Order on Amazon →

This page contains approximately 1,463 words of unique content.

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