
Miracles, Mysteries & Medicine in Lakefront, Nashua
The therapeutic power of storytelling is ancient, but modern research has given it a new name: narrative medicine. Pioneered by Dr. Rita Charon at Columbia University, narrative medicine holds that stories—told, heard, and shared—can heal in ways that pharmacology cannot. In Lakefront, Nashua, New Hampshire, where families grapple with loss, chronic illness, and the existential questions that accompany both, "Physicians' Untold Stories" embodies this therapeutic tradition. Dr. Kolbaba's accounts are medical narratives that transcend the clinical, touching dimensions of human experience that science acknowledges but cannot fully explain. For readers in Lakefront, Nashua who are processing grief, searching for meaning, or simply yearning for hope, these stories offer something that no prescription can provide: the possibility that the universe is more benevolent than suffering suggests.

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 →"Chicken Soup for Doctor's Souls." — Mary Ellen M.
Medical Fact
A daily dose of dark chocolate (1 ounce) has been associated with improved mood and reduced stress hormone levels.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Lakefront, Nashua
Physicians practicing in Lakefront, 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 Lakefront, 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 Lakefront, 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 placebo effect is so powerful that it accounts for roughly 30% of the improvement in clinical drug trials.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Lakefront, Nashua
Palliative care physicians in Lakefront, Nashua, New Hampshire report that knowledge of NDE research has changed how they approach dying patients. Instead of defaulting to sedation when patients describe visions of deceased relatives or bright tunnels, they now assess whether these experiences are distressing or comforting. In most cases, patients find them profoundly reassuring—and the physician's willingness to listen amplifies that reassurance.
Yale's neuroscience department published a landmark paper showing that pig brains could be partially revived hours after death, challenging the assumption that consciousness ends at the moment of cardiac arrest. For intensivists in Lakefront, Nashua, New Hampshire, this research reframes the NDE question: it's not whether experiences during cardiac arrest are 'real,' but what 'real' means when the brain's off-switch isn't as binary as we assumed.
Medical Fact
The smallest bone in the human body — the stapes in the ear — is about the size of a grain of rice.
Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Lakefront, Nashua
The research laboratories near Lakefront, Nashua, New Hampshire are filled with scientists who will never meet the patients their work will save. The immunologist studying a rare cancer, the geneticist mapping a hereditary disease, the pharmacologist designing a better painkiller—these researchers are healers once removed, and their patience over years and decades is a form of devotion that deserves recognition as caring in its own right.
The opioid crisis has ravaged Northeast communities near Lakefront, Nashua, New Hampshire with a ferocity that exposed the limits of pharmaceutical medicine. But it also catalyzed a revolution in how physicians approach pain and addiction—with more compassion, more humility, and a recognition that healing often begins not with a prescription but with the question, 'What happened to you?' instead of 'What's wrong with you?'
Did You Know?
The concept of "hospital rounds" originated in the 17th century when physicians would literally walk from bed to bed.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Lakefront, Nashua, New Hampshire
The Northeast's growing nondenominational Christian movement near Lakefront, Nashua, New Hampshire emphasizes a personal, unmediated relationship with God that translates into medicine as a personal, unmediated relationship with healing. These patients often bypass institutional chaplaincy in favor of their own prayer practices, asking physicians to simply be present—not as spiritual guides, but as witnesses to their private conversation with the divine.
The interfaith dialogue that characterizes Northeast urban life near Lakefront, Nashua, New Hampshire extends into hospital ethics committees, where rabbis, imams, priests, and secular ethicists collaborate on cases that medicine alone cannot resolve. When a devout Muslim family requests that their father be kept on life support until a son can fly from overseas, the committee doesn't adjudicate between faith and medicine—it honors both.
Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
Did You Know?
The oldest known surgical instruments — made of obsidian — date back approximately 10,000 years.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
Did You Know?
The first successful organ transplant using immunosuppressive drugs was performed in 1962, opening the door to routine transplantation.
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
The book's central message — that there is more to human existence than what medicine can measure — resonates across cultural boundaries.
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 Barbara Cummiskey case, featured in the book, is one of the most documented miraculous recoveries in medical history.
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
A gratitude letter — writing to someone you're thankful for — produces measurable increases in happiness lasting up to 3 months.
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.
Reading this book in Lakefront, Nashua, New Hampshire—surrounded by the Northeast's architectural weight of old hospitals, cobblestone streets, and buildings older than the nation—gives the stories a physical context that enhances their power. These experiences didn't happen in abstract medical settings. They happened in places like this, in buildings like these, to physicians not unlike you.

Research Finding
Gardening has been associated with reduced cortisol levels, improved mood, and lower BMI in regular practitioners.
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Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5 stars from 1018 readers.
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