Where Science Ends and Wonder Begins in Hillside, Claremont

Every grief is unique, but every grief shares a common fear: that the person who died is truly, completely, irrevocably gone. Physicians' Untold Stories addresses this fear directly for readers in Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire. The physician accounts in Dr. Kolbaba's collection describe moments that suggest otherwise—moments when dying patients connected with deceased loved ones, when information was communicated from the dead to the living, and when the boundary between life and death seemed more permeable than our culture typically acknowledges. For the grieving, this permeability is not a philosophical abstraction; it is the difference between despair and hope.

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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A Marine Corps veteran, Mayo Clinic-trained internist, and Chicago Magazine Top Doctor — Dr. Kolbaba brings decades of credibility to these extraordinary accounts.

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Medical Fact

Human saliva contains opiorphin, a natural painkiller six times more powerful than morphine.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Hillside, Claremont

Physicians practicing in Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire 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 Hillside, Claremont 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 Hillside, Claremont 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

Identical twins do not have identical fingerprints — they are influenced by random developmental factors in the womb.

Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Hillside, Claremont

The recovery rooms of Northeast hospitals near Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire are quiet theaters where small miracles occur daily. A stroke patient speaks her first word in weeks. A child takes a step after months in a wheelchair. A veteran, tormented by nightmares, sleeps peacefully for the first time in years. These moments rarely make headlines, but they are the substance of medicine's real purpose.

The mentorship traditions at Northeast medical schools near Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire create chains of healing that stretch across generations. An attending physician who learned compassion from her mentor in 1980 teaches it to a resident in 2020, who will carry it to patients in 2060. Medicine's greatest discoveries may be pharmacological, but its greatest gift is the human-to-human transmission of the art of caring.

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Medical Fact

A single drop of blood contains approximately 5 million red blood cells, 10,000 white blood cells, and 250,000 platelets.

Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire

The African Methodist Episcopal churches near Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire have served as healthcare access points for Black communities since Reconstruction. When physicians earn the trust of AME congregations, they gain access to patients who have every historical reason to distrust medical institutions. The church becomes the bridge between a community's faith and its physical health.

The Northeast's Buddhist communities near Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire approach illness and death with a equanimity that can unsettle physicians accustomed to the fight-at-all-costs ethos of American medicine. Buddhist patients who decline aggressive treatment aren't giving up—they're making a spiritually informed choice about how to spend their remaining time. This challenges Northeast medicine's reflexive escalation and expands the definition of good care.

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Did You Know?

The concept of "therapeutic presence" — a physician's calming influence on patients — has been measured in clinical studies.

Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire

Boston's medical district, one of the oldest in the nation, has accumulated centuries of ghostly lore that physicians near Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire inherit whether they want to or not. The ether dome at Massachusetts General, where anesthesia was first publicly demonstrated in 1846, is said to echo with the moans of patients who went under and never fully came back—at least not in the conventional sense.

Civil War hospitals that served the Union cause left their mark across the Northeast, and facilities near Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire occasionally unearth reminders. Construction projects have turned up surgical instruments, bone fragments, and—according to workers—the unmistakable copper smell of old blood. The subsequent ghostly activity tends to be auditory: the rhythmic sawing of a bone saw, the splash of a limb dropping into a bucket.

Types of Phenomena in the Book

Distribution across 26 physician accounts

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Did You Know?

Dr. Kolbaba's interviews revealed that physicians are more spiritual than the general public assumes — many pray before difficult procedures.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

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Did You Know?

The concept of "evidence-based medicine" was only formally named in 1991 — meaning most of medical history operated without it.

Medical Heritage in New Hampshire

New Hampshire's medical history stretches back to the founding of Dartmouth Medical School in 1797, making it the fourth-oldest medical school in the United States. Located in Hanover, it was established by Dr. Nathan Smith, who envisioned training physicians for rural New England. Smith himself performed one of the first ovarian tumor removals in American history in 1821. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the state's only academic medical center, grew from these roots and today serves as the tertiary referral hospital for much of northern New England. Dr. Albert Surgeon General Gallatin, a New Hampshire native, contributed to early public health measures in the state.

The New Hampshire State Hospital in Concord, opened in 1842, was one of the earliest state psychiatric institutions in New England and became known for its progressive approach to mental health care under superintendent Dr. Jesse Bancroft. Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, founded in 1893 through a bequest from Hiram Hitchcock in memory of his wife, became the teaching hospital for Dartmouth Medical School. The state's rural character has driven innovations in community health; the Ammonoosuc Community Health Services, founded in 1975 in the White Mountains, became a model for federally qualified health centers serving isolated mountain communities.

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About the Book

Dr. Kolbaba's Castle Connolly Top Doctor designation reflects his peers' recognition of his clinical excellence.

Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in New Hampshire

New Hampshire's supernatural legends are woven into its colonial history and rugged mountain landscape. The tale of "Ocean Born Mary" is one of the state's most enduring ghost stories: Mary Wallace, born aboard a ship off the coast of New England in 1720, allegedly grew up to live in a grand house in Henniker, New Hampshire, built for her by a reformed pirate named Don Pedro. Her ghost is said to haunt the house, appearing as a tall red-haired woman in colonial dress, and the legend has drawn curiosity seekers to Henniker for generations.

Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast at 6,288 feet, has a long history of fatal weather events and ghostly encounters. Hikers have reported seeing the apparition of Lizzie Bourne, a young woman who died of exposure near the summit in 1855—she was one of the first recorded hiking fatalities on the mountain. The Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, site of the 1944 international monetary conference, is famously haunted by the ghost of its builder, Joseph Stickney, whose wife Caroline remarried a French prince after his death. Staff report seeing Stickney's ghost in the dining room and hearing piano music from empty ballrooms.

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About the Book

The idea for the book began when a single colleague shared an experience he had never told anyone.

Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in New Hampshire

New Hampshire State Hospital (Concord): Operating since 1842, the New Hampshire State Hospital has a troubled history that includes overcrowding and patient deaths. The older buildings on campus are said to be haunted by former patients, with staff reporting unexplained screaming from empty rooms, doors that lock and unlock themselves, and the figure of a woman in a white hospital gown seen staring from upper-story windows at night.

Laconia State School (Laconia): The Laconia State School, which operated from 1903 to 1991 as an institution for people with intellectual disabilities, was the subject of abuse investigations and documented mistreatment. The abandoned campus has become a site for paranormal investigations, with visitors reporting shadowy figures, children's laughter in empty buildings, and an overwhelming sense of sadness in the dormitory halls.

Types of Phenomena in the Book

Distribution across 26 physician accounts

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Research Finding

Touching or holding hands with a loved one has been shown to reduce pain perception by up to 34%.

How This Book Can Help You

Physicians' Untold Stories by Dr. Scott Kolbaba speaks to the kind of intimate medicine still practiced in New Hampshire's rural communities, where Dartmouth-trained physicians serve patients across generations in small towns from the White Mountains to the Connecticut River valley. The state's medical tradition, rooted in Nathan Smith's vision of training doctors for underserved areas, produces the kind of deep clinical relationships where physicians witness the full arc of life and death—the same setting in which Dr. Kolbaba, working at Northwestern Medicine after his Mayo Clinic training, encountered the unexplained deathbed phenomena he documents in his book.

The Northeast's mental health community near Hillside, Claremont, New Hampshire will recognize in this book the clinical importance of taking extraordinary experiences seriously. Patients who report ghostly encounters or NDEs and are dismissed as delusional by their physicians may develop secondary trauma from the dismissal itself. This book argues for a medical culture that can hold space for the unexplained without pathologizing it.

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

Medical students who participate in narrative medicine courses show higher empathy scores than those who do not.

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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