
When Doctors Near Freedom, Detroit Witness the Impossible
The tunnel experience — one of the most iconic features of the near-death experience — has been the subject of extensive scientific debate. Skeptics have attributed it to the effects of retinal hypoxia, temporal lobe stimulation, or the release of endogenous psychedelic compounds. But research by Dr. Kevin Nelson, Dr. Jeffrey Long, and others has shown that the tunnel experience cannot be fully accounted for by these mechanisms. It occurs in patients with no retinal pathology, in patients whose temporal lobes show no unusual activity, and in patients who are not taking any medications. Moreover, the tunnel experience is consistently reported as profoundly meaningful — not merely a visual artifact but a passage that the experiencer feels they are genuinely traversing. For physicians in Freedom, Detroit who have heard patients describe the tunnel with conviction and clarity, Physicians' Untold Stories validates the significance of these reports.

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
Humans share about 60% of their DNA with bananas and 98.7% with chimpanzees.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Freedom, Detroit
Physicians practicing in Freedom, Detroit, Michigan 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 Freedom, Detroit 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 Freedom, Detroit 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
Dr. Virginia Apgar developed the Apgar score in 1952 — it remains the standard assessment for newborn health.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Freedom, Detroit, Michigan
The Midwest's tradition of bedside Bibles near Freedom, Detroit, Michigan—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 Freedom, Detroit, Michigan 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.
Medical Fact
The average adult has about 5 million hair follicles — the same number as a gorilla.
Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Freedom, Detroit, Michigan
The Dust Bowl drove thousands of Midwesterners from their land, and the hospitals near Freedom, Detroit, Michigan that treated dust pneumonia patients carry the memory of that exodus. Respiratory therapists in the region describe occasional patients who cough up dust that shouldn't be in their lungs—fine, red-brown Oklahoma topsoil in the airway of a patient who has never left Michigan. The land's memory enters the body.
Prairie isolation has always bred its own kind of ghost story, and hospitals near Freedom, Detroit, Michigan carry the loneliness of the Great Plains into their corridors. Night-shift nurses describe a silence so deep it has texture—and into that silence, sounds that shouldn't be there: the creak of a wagon wheel, the whinny of a horse, the footsteps of a homesteader who died alone in a sod house that became a clinic that became a hospital.
Did You Know?
Approximately 65% of all emergency department visits in the U.S. occur during evenings, nights, and weekends.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Freedom, Detroit
Midwest NDE researchers near Freedom, Detroit, Michigan 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 Freedom, Detroit, Michigan 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.
Near-Death Experience Features
Percentage reporting each feature (van Lommel et al., 2001)
Did You Know?
The first medical journal, Le Journal des Sçavans, was published in France in 1665.
Detroit: Where History, Medicine, and the Supernatural Converge
Detroit's supernatural landscape is shaped by its dramatic rise and fall as an industrial powerhouse. The vast abandoned buildings left by the city's population decline—from 1.85 million in 1950 to under 640,000 today—create an eerie urban landscape that has attracted paranormal investigators from around the world. Eloise Asylum, the massive former psychiatric complex that housed over 10,000 patients at its peak, is considered one of the most haunted locations in the Midwest, with investigators documenting EVPs, shadow figures, and apparitions in its remaining buildings. The Whitney, one of Detroit's most elegant restaurants, has been featured on multiple paranormal television programs. Michigan Central Station, Detroit's grand abandoned train station, was considered deeply haunted during its three decades of abandonment. Detroit's African American community maintains strong beliefs in spiritual healing and rootwork traditions brought from the South during the Great Migration, and the city's numerous storefront churches continue traditions of faith healing and spiritual deliverance.
Detroit's medical contributions are significant despite—and sometimes because of—the city's well-documented challenges. Henry Ford Hospital, founded by the automaker in 1915, pioneered the 'closed staff' model where all physicians are hospital employees, a revolutionary concept that would later influence the development of managed care and HMOs across America. Detroit Receiving Hospital, as one of the nation's busiest trauma centers, has developed considerable expertise in treating gunshot wounds and violent trauma. The Wayne State University School of Medicine, founded in 1868, has trained generations of physicians serving Detroit's underserved communities. The city's medical history also includes the establishment of Harper Hospital in 1863, one of the oldest hospitals in Michigan, which served as a Civil War military hospital. Detroit's current healthcare challenges—including dramatic health disparities between its neighborhoods—make it a critical site for health equity research.
Did You Know?
Dr. Kolbaba often emphasizes that the book is not about proving the existence of God but about sharing authentic physician experiences.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
About the Book
The book was independently published, giving Dr. Kolbaba full control over the content and the physicians' stories.
Notable Locations in Detroit
The Whitney: This 1894 Romanesque mansion, now a fine dining restaurant, was home to lumber baron David Whitney Jr. and is reportedly haunted by the ghosts of Whitney and his wife, with staff reporting doors opening, lights flickering, and ghostly figures on the grand staircase.
Michigan Central Station: The massive Beaux-Arts train station, abandoned from 1988 to 2018, became an iconic symbol of Detroit's decline and was considered deeply haunted during its decades of abandonment, with urban explorers reporting ghostly train whistles and apparitions.
Eloise Asylum: This former massive psychiatric complex in Westland (metro Detroit), which at its peak housed over 10,000 patients, is considered one of the most haunted locations in Michigan, with reports of ghostly patients and screams from the abandoned buildings.
Henry Ford Hospital: Founded in 1915 by automotive pioneer Henry Ford, this hospital pioneered the concept of a 'closed staff' hospital where all physicians are salaried employees rather than independent practitioners—a model that influenced the development of HMOs.
Detroit Receiving Hospital: One of the busiest Level I trauma centers in the United States, this hospital has been on the front lines of treating victims of violence and accidents in one of America's most challenging urban environments.
About the Book
The book has been used as assigned reading in courses on medical humanities at several universities.
Medical Heritage in Michigan
Michigan's medical history is anchored by the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, founded in 1850, which became one of the nation's premier academic medical centers. Michigan Medicine pioneered numerous advances, including Dr. Cameron Haight's first successful surgical removal of an esophageal cancer in 1933 and the development of the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) program under Dr. Robert Bartlett in the 1970s. The university's depression research program also made fundamental contributions to understanding mood disorders.
Detroit's medical history is equally significant. Henry Ford Hospital, founded in 1915 by the automaker, pioneered the group medical practice model and was led by Dr. Frank Sladen, a visionary administrator who created one of America's first integrated multi-specialty practices. The Wayne State University School of Medicine, established in 1868, trained physicians to serve Detroit's diverse working-class population. The Kresge Eye Institute at Wayne State became internationally known for ophthalmology research. Michigan's pharmaceutical contributions include the founding of the Upjohn Company in Kalamazoo in 1886 by Dr. William Upjohn, who invented the 'friable pill' that dissolved more easily than existing tablets, transforming drug delivery.
Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
Research Finding
A study in Health Psychology found that people who help others experience reduced mortality risk — the "helper's high."
Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Michigan
Michigan's supernatural folklore is shaped by its Great Lakes maritime heritage, northern forests, and the legends of its industrial cities. The Michigan Triangle, an area in Lake Michigan roughly defined by Ludington, Benton Harbor, and Manitowoc (Wisconsin), is the Great Lakes equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle, where numerous ships and aircraft have vanished, including the Northwest Airlines Flight 2501, which disappeared with 58 people aboard in 1950 and has never been fully recovered. The ghost ship 'Le Griffon,' built by the explorer La Salle in 1679 and lost on its maiden return voyage, is the Great Lakes' most legendary phantom vessel.
On land, the Paulding Light in the Upper Peninsula near Watersmeet has been observed since the 1960s—a mysterious light that appears in the distance along a power line clearing, attributed by legend to the ghost of a railroad brakeman killed by an oncoming train. The Nain Rouge ('Red Dwarf') of Detroit is a harbinger of disaster, reportedly seen before major catastrophes including the 1805 fire that destroyed the city, the 1967 riots, and the 2013 bankruptcy. The Whitney restaurant in Detroit, housed in a lumber baron's 1894 mansion, is haunted by the ghost of Flora Whitney, who appears on the grand staircase and rearranges table settings.
Research Finding
Patients who laugh regularly have 40% lower levels of stress hormones compared to those who rarely laugh.
Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Michigan
Old Detroit Receiving Hospital: Serving as Detroit's primary emergency and trauma hospital for decades, the old Detroit Receiving treated gunshot victims, auto accident casualties, and industrial injuries in staggering numbers. Staff who worked in the old building before it was replaced reported seeing recently deceased patients walking the halls, hearing code blue alarms from decommissioned monitors, and the persistent ghost of a young man in the old ER bay who was shot during the 1967 riots.
Eloise Asylum (Westland): The Eloise complex was one of the largest poorhouse and psychiatric facility systems in America, operating from 1839 to 1984 and housing up to 10,000 residents at its peak. The complex included a hospital, asylum, poorhouse, and cemetery with over 7,100 burials. The remaining 'D Building'—the psychiatric hospital—is now open for paranormal investigation. Visitors report being scratched by unseen hands, hearing gurneys rolling in empty hallways, seeing shadow figures in the patient rooms, and encountering a woman in a white nightgown on the second floor who is believed to be a former patient.
“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
Michigan's medical community—spanning the University of Michigan's world-class research programs, Henry Ford Hospital's pioneering group practice model, and the gritty trauma medicine of Detroit—creates exactly the kind of physician population that Physicians' Untold Stories addresses. The state's physicians, from rural Upper Peninsula practitioners to Detroit trauma surgeons, encounter the full range of human suffering that produces the inexplicable bedside experiences Dr. Kolbaba documents. Michigan's industrial working-class culture, where faith and practicality coexist, means that physicians here are often surrounded by patients and families whose deep religious convictions shape their experience of illness—creating the conditions under which the miraculous encounters in Dr. Kolbaba's book most often unfold.
The book's honest treatment of physician doubt near Freedom, Detroit, Michigan will resonate with Midwest doctors who've been taught that certainty is a clinical virtue. These accounts reveal that the most important moments in a medical career are often the ones where certainty fails—where the physician must stand in the gap between what they know and what they've witnessed, and choose to speak honestly about both.

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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