
The Miracles Doctors in Hawthorne, Nashua Have Witnessed
Dr. Peter Fenwick, the renowned British neuropsychiatrist, once observed that deathbed phenomena are far more common than the medical establishment acknowledges — and that the witnesses are often the physicians and nurses themselves. His research, along with the Brayne, Lovelace, and Fenwick hospice survey, forms part of the scientific backdrop to Dr. Scott Kolbaba's Physicians' Untold Stories. But the foreground belongs to the doctors: men and women in Hawthorne, Nashua and across America who have seen patients reach toward invisible visitors, who have watched terminal patients achieve sudden, inexplicable clarity in their final hours, and who have carried these memories in silence until now. This book gives their experiences the respect — and the audience — they have long deserved.

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 →"I just read your book and was inspired, moved, entertained. I can't wait to share this book with premeds." — D.G., Ophthalmology Professor, University of Illinois
Medical Fact
Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States in 1849.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Hawthorne, Nashua
Physicians practicing in Hawthorne, 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 Hawthorne, 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 Hawthorne, 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 term "bedside manner" was first used in the mid-19th century to describe a physician's demeanor with patients.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Hawthorne, Nashua
Northeast pediatric hospitals near Hawthorne, Nashua, New Hampshire face a unique challenge when children report NDEs. Unlike adults, children lack the cultural and religious frameworks that skeptics cite as the source of NDE narratives. When a four-year-old describes leaving her body during surgery and accurately reports a conversation that occurred in the hallway, the neurochemical-artifact explanation strains credibility.
The Northeast's bioethics committees, among the most sophisticated in the country, are beginning to grapple with NDE-related questions near Hawthorne, Nashua, New Hampshire. If a patient reports receiving information during an NDE that proves medically relevant—a previously unknown allergy, a family history detail, a warning about a specific organ—how should the care team respond? The ethical framework for acting on non-empirical information doesn't exist yet.
Medical Fact
The human body contains about 2.5 million sweat glands distributed across the skin.
Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Hawthorne, Nashua
Night shifts at Northeast hospitals near Hawthorne, Nashua, New Hampshire produce a particular kind of healing that daylight obscures. In the quiet hours between midnight and dawn, the usual barriers between physician and patient soften. Conversations become more honest. Pain becomes more bearable when someone sits beside you in the dark. The most transformative medical encounters often happen when the rest of the world is asleep.
Northeast physicians near Hawthorne, Nashua, New Hampshire practice in a region where medical care is simultaneously world-class and desperately inadequate. The same city can contain a hospital that performs cutting-edge surgery and a neighborhood where children have never seen a dentist. Healing, in the Northeast, means reckoning with this inequality—and working, patient by patient, to close the gap.
Did You Know?
The human heart begins beating approximately 22 days after conception — before the brain has fully formed.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Hawthorne, Nashua, New Hampshire
Historic meetinghouse architecture—spare, light-filled, oriented toward a central purpose—has influenced hospital chapel design near Hawthorne, Nashua, New Hampshire. These spaces strip away denominational symbols in favor of natural light, simple seating, and silence. The result is a room that belongs to no faith and all faiths, where a Baptist can pray, a Buddhist can meditate, and an atheist can simply breathe.
Catholic bioethics centers near Hawthorne, Nashua, New Hampshire grapple with questions that secular ethics committees often avoid: the moral status of embryos, the permissibility of genetic engineering, the ethics of extending life beyond natural limits. Whatever one's position on these issues, the rigor of Catholic moral reasoning—honed over two millennia—enriches the ethical conversation in ways that benefit patients of all faiths and none.
Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
Did You Know?
Dr. Kolbaba found that physicians who had experienced the death of a close family member were more open to discussing unexplained phenomena.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
Did You Know?
Hippocrates described over 60 diseases in his writings — many of his clinical observations remain accurate today.
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 donates a portion of book proceeds to charitable causes, including the Romanian orphanage supported by REMM.
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
Dr. Kolbaba has been featured in local and national media discussing the intersection of medicine and the unexplained.
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
Forest bathing (spending time among trees) has been shown to reduce cortisol, blood pressure, and heart rate in multiple studies.
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 tradition of academic skepticism makes the stories in this book more powerful, not less. When a Harvard-trained cardiologist near Hawthorne, Nashua, New Hampshire reads about a colleague's encounter with the inexplicable, the shared framework of evidence-based training gives the account a credibility that no anecdote from a layperson could achieve.

Research Finding
Journaling about stressful experiences has been shown to improve wound healing by 76% compared to non-journaling controls.
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