200+ Physicians Share What They Witnessed Near Greenwood, Las Vegas

Mindfulness-based stress reduction has become a popular prescription for physician burnout, but in Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada, many doctors greet such recommendations with justified skepticism. How does ten minutes of meditation address a system that requires them to see thirty patients a day while completing mountains of documentation? The criticism is valid—individual interventions cannot fix structural problems—but the research is equally clear: mindfulness does reduce emotional exhaustion and improve resilience, even if it does not change the system. "Physicians' Untold Stories" offers a complementary pathway. Reading Dr. Kolbaba's extraordinary accounts is itself a mindful act—a deliberate pause from the relentless pace of clinical practice to contemplate experiences that transcend the ordinary. For Greenwood, Las Vegas's physicians, the book is not a substitute for systemic change but a sustaining practice while that change is fought for.

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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Physicians' Untold Stories — an Amazon bestseller with a 4.5-star rating from over 1,000 readers.

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Medical Fact

Listening to nature sounds reduces sympathetic nervous system activation by 15% compared to silence.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Greenwood, Las Vegas

Physicians practicing in Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada 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 Greenwood, Las Vegas 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 Greenwood, Las Vegas 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

A study published in Circulation found that laughter improves endothelial function, which is protective against atherosclerosis.

Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada

The West's Jewish Renewal movement near Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada—a spiritually progressive approach to Jewish practice—has produced chaplains and medical ethicists whose approach to faith-medicine integration emphasizes the patient's spiritual agency. Rather than applying Talmudic rulings to medical dilemmas, Jewish Renewal chaplains help patients find their own answers within the Jewish tradition's rich diversity of opinion.

The West's LDS health missions near Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada deploy young Mormon missionaries alongside healthcare professionals to underserved communities. The missionaries' faith provides motivation that outlasts professional obligation; their service is not a career choice but a divine calling. The medical infrastructure these missions build—from water purification systems to vaccination campaigns—reflects a faith tradition that treats physical health as a spiritual prerequisite.

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Medical Fact

A surgeon's hands are so precisely trained that many can tie a suture knot one-handed, blindfolded.

Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada

Chinese railroad workers who died building the transcontinental railroad left behind spirits that persist in Western hospitals near Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada. These laborers, denied medical care by the companies that employed them, treated their own injuries with traditional Chinese medicine. Their ghosts appear with acupuncture needles, herbal packets, and the quiet competence of healers who practiced in the face of institutional neglect.

The West's Hispanic heritage near Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada introduces La Llorona and other Mexican supernatural figures into hospital ghost stories. The weeping woman, searching for her drowned children, appears in pediatric wards and maternity units with a frequency that suggests either deep cultural programming or a genuine spiritual presence. Hispanic families who hear her cry respond with specific prayers that, whatever their metaphysical efficacy, demonstrably reduce parental anxiety.

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Did You Know?

A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that physicians who experience burnout are twice as likely to make medical errors.

Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Greenwood, Las Vegas

The West Coast's hospice movement near Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada—which grew from the counterculture's rejection of medicalized death—has created end-of-life care environments where NDEs and pre-death experiences are received with curiosity rather than clinical alarm. West Coast hospice workers are among the most NDE-literate in the country, and their observations provide a continuous stream of data that formal research has yet to fully capture.

The West Coast's annual NDE conference near Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada brings together researchers, experiencers, clinicians, and curious members of the public for three days of presentations, workshops, and conversation. These conferences are the field's annual pulse-check—where the latest research is presented, where methodological debates are conducted openly, and where the human dimension of NDE research is never lost in the scientific details.

Near-Death Experience Features

Percentage reporting each feature (van Lommel et al., 2001)

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Did You Know?

The placebo effect has been shown to work even when patients know they are receiving a placebo — a phenomenon called "open-label placebo."

Las Vegas: Where History, Medicine, and the Supernatural Converge

Las Vegas, built in the Nevada desert on land sacred to the Southern Paiute people, has accumulated its own dark supernatural legends beneath the neon glamour. Bugsy Siegel's ghost is said to haunt the Flamingo, the casino he built with mob money before being assassinated in 1947. The Luxor pyramid, with its distinctive light beam, has been the site of numerous reported suicides and accidents, generating persistent ghost stories. Zak Bagans of the 'Ghost Adventures' television series has established a Haunted Museum in Las Vegas containing objects claimed to be demonically possessed. The city's vast surrounding desert, where both atomic bomb testing and mob-era body disposal occurred, contributes to an eerie supernatural atmosphere. The Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where 928 nuclear tests were conducted, has generated its own folklore about irradiated ghosts and mutated wildlife. Many of the city's older hotels and casinos, with their histories of mob violence, have individual ghost legends maintained by staff and guests.

Las Vegas's most significant moment in medical history came on October 1, 2017, when a gunman opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest music festival from the Mandalay Bay hotel, killing 60 people and injuring over 400 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. University Medical Center and Sunrise Hospital treated hundreds of victims, with surgical teams working through the night in what became a defining test of mass casualty preparedness. The lessons learned reshaped trauma protocols nationwide. Beyond this tragedy, Las Vegas has grown into a significant medical center, with the UNLV School of Medicine established in 2017 to address a severe physician shortage—Nevada historically ranked last among states in physicians per capita. The city's extreme desert environment has also contributed to research on heat-related illnesses and dehydration.

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Did You Know?

The phrase "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" originated in Wales in 1866 as a Pembrokeshire proverb.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

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About the Book

The physicians in the book represent diverse backgrounds — men and women, young and old, from multiple ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Notable Locations in Las Vegas

Luxor Hotel: The pyramid-shaped casino has been the site of numerous deaths including construction worker fatalities and guest suicides, with hotel staff reporting ghostly encounters on upper floors and in the inclined elevator shafts.

Flamingo Hotel: The legendary casino opened by mobster Bugsy Siegel in 1946 is reportedly haunted by Siegel's ghost, seen in the garden area near the memorial to him and in the hotel's wedding chapel.

Zak Bagans' The Haunted Museum: This museum, housed in a 1938 mansion where the original owner committed murder, contains what is claimed to be the world's largest collection of haunted objects, including items from serial killers and the Dybbuk Box.

University Medical Center of Southern Nevada: Las Vegas's only public hospital and Level I trauma center, which gained national attention for treating hundreds of victims of the 2017 Route 91 Harvest music festival mass shooting, the deadliest in modern US history.

Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center: The largest private hospital in Nevada, which also played a critical role in treating victims of the October 1, 2017, mass shooting, receiving over 200 patients in a single night.

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About the Book

Many of the physicians in the book have since connected with each other, forming an informal network of shared experience.

Medical Heritage in Nevada

Nevada's medical history is intertwined with the boom-and-bust cycles of its mining towns and the rapid growth of Las Vegas. The state's first hospital, St. Mary's in Reno, was founded in 1877 by the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael to treat miners injured in the Comstock Lode silver mines. The University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, established in 1969, was the state's only medical school for decades and focused on training physicians for Nevada's underserved rural communities. In Las Vegas, Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center, opened in 1958, grew alongside the Strip and became a Level II trauma center handling everything from construction injuries to mass casualty events.

Nevada's most defining medical moment came on October 1, 2017, when the Route 91 Harvest music festival mass shooting killed 60 people and wounded over 400, testing Las Vegas's trauma system to its limits. University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, Sunrise Hospital, and multiple facilities received hundreds of casualties within minutes, and the coordinated response became a case study in mass casualty medicine. The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV, which enrolled its first class in 2017, was established specifically to address Nevada's chronic physician shortage—the state has consistently ranked near the bottom nationally in doctors per capita.

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Research Finding

Tai chi practice reduces fall risk in elderly adults by 43% and improves balance and coordination.

Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Nevada

Nevada's supernatural folklore is as vast and desolate as its desert landscape. The Goldfield Hotel, built in 1908 in the once-booming mining town of Goldfield, is considered one of the most haunted buildings in America. The ghost of Elizabeth, allegedly a prostitute who was chained to a radiator by hotel owner George Wingfield and died after childbirth, is the most commonly reported apparition—guests hear crying from Room 109 and see a woman in white drifting through hallways. The hotel has been featured on numerous paranormal television programs and remains a draw for ghost hunters.

Area 51 and the surrounding Nevada Test Site have generated decades of UFO folklore and conspiracy theories, but the desert holds older supernatural traditions as well. The Paiute people tell of the Si-Te-Cah, a race of red-haired giants who once inhabited Lovelock Cave near the Humboldt Sink—archaeological excavations in 1911 did uncover unusually large remains and red-haired mummies, fueling the legend. In Virginia City, the entire town is considered haunted; the Washoe Club, built in 1875, is known for a floating blue orb photographed in its spiral staircase and the apparition of a young woman called "Lena" seen on the upper floors.

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Research Finding

Healthcare workers who practice self-compassion report 30% lower rates of secondary traumatic stress.

Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Nevada

Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital (Las Vegas): Now University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, the original Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital, established in 1931, served early Las Vegas through its rapid growth from railroad town to entertainment capital. Old-timers and long-tenured staff have shared stories of a spectral woman in 1940s clothing seen in the original hospital wing, believed to be a patient who died during childbirth in the facility's early decades.

Old Washoe Medical Center (Reno): The former Washoe Medical Center, before its relocation and renaming, was the site of numerous reported hauntings in its older wings. Night-shift nurses described call lights turning on in empty rooms, the sound of gurneys rolling through vacant corridors, and the apparition of a man in surgical scrubs who would walk through walls in the basement morgue area.

One Amazon reviewer wrote: "I shivered. I cried. I read some out loud to the spouse. Please write more."

Physicians' Untold Stories

How This Book Can Help You

The extraordinary experiences Dr. Kolbaba chronicles in Physicians' Untold Stories find a unique parallel in Nevada, where Las Vegas trauma physicians confronted unprecedented mass casualty during the 2017 Route 91 shooting, witnessing both death on a massive scale and remarkable survival stories that defied medical expectation. Nevada's frontier medical tradition—from mining camp surgeons in Virginia City to modern emergency physicians at UMC—has always required practitioners to work at the edge of what medicine can explain, the same threshold where Dr. Kolbaba's Mayo Clinic training met the unexplainable phenomena he encountered at Northwestern Medicine.

Film festivals near Greenwood, Las Vegas, Nevada that have screened documentaries about consciousness, NDEs, and physician experiences have found audiences hungry for the book that inspired them. The West's visual culture amplifies the book's reach: readers become viewers become discussants, and the conversation spirals outward through the region's media ecosystem.

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

Reader Ratings Distribution

Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings

The consistency of these stories across different hospitals, specialties, and geographic regions is impossible to dismiss as coincidence.

Physicians' Untold Stories

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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