
200+ Physicians Share What They Witnessed Near Brookside, Nashua
The phenomenon of "distressing" or "hellish" near-death experiences — NDEs that include frightening imagery, a sense of isolation, or encounters with hostile entities — represents an important and often overlooked aspect of NDE research. Dr. Bruce Greyson, Nancy Evans Bush, and other researchers have documented these experiences, which occur in an estimated 10-15% of all NDEs. Distressing NDEs challenge the assumption that all near-death experiences are blissful, but they also reveal important patterns: many distressing NDEs transform into positive experiences during the course of the NDE, and nearly all experiencers interpret them retrospectively as ultimately meaningful. For Brookside, Nashua readers, the inclusion of distressing NDEs in Physicians' Untold Stories demonstrates Dr. Kolbaba's commitment to presenting the full spectrum of physician experience, not just the comforting cases.

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 →Physicians' Untold Stories — an Amazon bestseller with a 4.5-star rating from over 1,000 readers.
Medical Fact
The average ER physician makes approximately 30,000 decisions during a single shift.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Brookside, Nashua
Physicians practicing in Brookside, Nashua, 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 Brookside, Nashua 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 Brookside, Nashua 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 cornea is the only part of the human body with no blood supply — it receives oxygen directly from the air.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Brookside, Nashua
The Northeast's aging population means that physicians in Brookside, Nashua, New Hampshire are managing more end-of-life cases than ever before. Hospice nurses in the region report that patients who've had prior NDEs approach death with markedly less anxiety—a clinical observation that aligns with Greyson's published data showing reduced death anxiety in NDE experiencers, sometimes persisting for decades after the event.
The Northeast's concentration of Level I trauma centers means that Brookside, Nashua, New Hampshire physicians see the highest-acuity patients—and the most dramatic recoveries. When a patient who was clinically dead for twenty minutes wakes up and describes a coherent, structured experience during that period, the trauma team faces a choice: chart it as 'patient reports unusual experience during arrest' or acknowledge that their understanding of death is incomplete.
Medical Fact
The "white coat" tradition in medicine began at the end of the 19th century to associate doctors with the purity and precision of laboratory science.
Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Brookside, Nashua
Rural medicine in the Northeast doesn't get the attention that metropolitan medical centers receive, but physicians in small towns near Brookside, Nashua, New Hampshire practice a form of healing that no academic center can replicate. They know their patients by name, by family, by the thirty years of medical history they carry in their heads. This longitudinal intimacy is itself therapeutic—being truly known is a form of care.
Medical students near Brookside, Nashua, New Hampshire learn the science of medicine in lecture halls, but they learn the art of healing in patient rooms. The first time a student holds a dying patient's hand, something shifts. The vast apparatus of medical education—the biochemistry, the pharmacology, the anatomy—suddenly has a purpose that transcends examinations. It exists to serve the person in the bed.
Did You Know?
Approximately 40% of healthcare workers report moderate to severe anxiety, according to studies conducted during high-stress periods.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Brookside, Nashua, New Hampshire
Portuguese and Brazilian communities near Brookside, Nashua, New Hampshire bring a Catholic tradition rich with folk healing—promessas (healing vows), ex-votos (offering replicas of healed body parts), and devotion to healing saints like São Expedito. These practices, far from being obstacles to care, often increase treatment compliance: a patient who has made a promessa to recover feels divinely obligated to follow the doctor's orders.
Northeast medical schools near Brookside, Nashua, New Hampshire increasingly include coursework on spiritual care, recognizing that a physician who cannot discuss a patient's faith is incompletely trained. This isn't about endorsing any particular belief system—it's about acknowledging that for many patients, their relationship with God is as clinically relevant as their relationship with their medications.
Reader Ratings Distribution
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Did You Know?
The average person spends about 26 years sleeping — roughly one-third of their entire life.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
Did You Know?
Ancient Greek physicians used music therapy — particularly the lyre — to treat mental and physical illness.
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.
About the Book
Dr. Kolbaba graduated with honors from the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
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.
About the Book
The book has been translated into multiple languages and is available worldwide on Amazon.
Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in New Hampshire
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.
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.
Types of Phenomena in the Book
Distribution across 26 physician accounts
Research Finding
Intercessory prayer studies, while controversial, have prompted serious scientific inquiry into mind-body-spirit connections.
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.
Book clubs and reading groups near Brookside, Nashua, New Hampshire will find this book uniquely suited to the Northeast's love of debate. These aren't stories that demand belief—they're stories that demand conversation. Is consciousness reducible to brain function? Can a dying brain perceive? What do physicians owe patients who report experiences that science can't yet explain?

Research Finding
Coloring books for adults reduce anxiety and depression scores comparably to meditation in randomized trials.
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Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5 stars from 1018 readers.
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