Miracles, Mysteries & Medicine in Laguna, Cary

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 Laguna, Cary 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.

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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"Chicken Soup for Doctor's Souls." — Mary Ellen M.

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Medical Fact

Post-NDE electromagnetic sensitivity — disrupting watches, electronics, and streetlights — has been reported by a significant minority of experiencers.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Laguna, Cary

Physicians practicing in Laguna, Cary, North Carolina 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 Laguna, Cary 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 Laguna, Cary 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

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 Laguna, Cary

The Southeast's tradition of sacred harp singing—four-part a cappella hymns rooted in the 18th century—surfaces unexpectedly in NDE accounts near Laguna, Cary, North Carolina. Multiple experiencers from different communities have described hearing music during their NDEs that matches the harmonic structure and emotional quality of shape-note singing. Whether this reflects cultural conditioning or something more remains an open question.

Pediatric NDEs in the Southeast near Laguna, Cary, North Carolina often incorporate religious imagery that reflects the region's devout culture—angels with specific features, heavenly gates matching Sunday school pictures, encounters with Jesus described in physical detail. Skeptics cite this as evidence that NDEs are cultural constructs. Proponents note that children too young for Sunday school report similar imagery, suggesting something more complex than cultural programming.

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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 Laguna, Cary

Fishing as therapy near Laguna, Cary, North Carolina is a Southeast tradition that rehabilitation medicine is beginning to validate. The patience required, the connection to water, the meditative quality of casting and waiting, the satisfaction of providing food—these elements combine into a therapeutic experience that addresses physical, psychological, and social needs simultaneously. Southern physicians who write 'go fishing' on a prescription pad aren't joking.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities near Laguna, Cary, North Carolina have produced generations of physicians who return to serve their communities, understanding that representation in healthcare is itself a form of healing. When a young Black patient near Laguna, Cary sees a physician who looks like her, who speaks her language, who understands her hair and her skin and her grandmother's cooking, a barrier to care dissolves that no policy initiative can replicate.

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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 Laguna, Cary, North Carolina

Deathbed confessions near Laguna, Cary, North Carolina—patients sharing secrets, seeking forgiveness, reconciling with estranged family—are facilitated by the Southeast's faith tradition, which frames the dying process as an opportunity for spiritual completion. Physicians and chaplains who create space for these confessions are enabling a form of healing that has no medical equivalent. The patient who dies having spoken the unspeakable dies with a peace that morphine cannot provide.

Southern physicians near Laguna, Cary, North Carolina who are themselves people of faith navigate a dual identity that their secular colleagues rarely appreciate. They pray before operating, attend church between call shifts, and believe that their medical skill is a divine gift. This isn't cognitive dissonance—it's integration. The faith-practicing physician sees no contradiction between studying biochemistry and kneeling in prayer; both are forms of seeking truth.

Reader Ratings Distribution

Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings

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Did You Know?

The oldest known surgical instruments — made of obsidian — date back approximately 10,000 years.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

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Did You Know?

The first successful organ transplant using immunosuppressive drugs was performed in 1962, opening the door to routine transplantation.

Medical Heritage in North Carolina

North Carolina's medical legacy is anchored by Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, founded in 1930 with a massive endowment from the Duke family's tobacco fortune. Duke University Hospital rapidly became one of the leading academic medical centers in the South, pioneering cardiovascular surgery and cancer research. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, established in 1879, developed one of the nation's first family medicine departments and has been a leader in rural health care delivery. Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, founded in 1902, performed the world's first successful living-donor lung transplant in 1989 under Dr. Robert Stitik.

The Research Triangle—formed by Duke, UNC, and NC State—has become a global hub for pharmaceutical and biotechnology research. North Carolina's public health history includes the darker chapter of the state-run eugenics program, which forcibly sterilized approximately 7,600 people between 1929 and 1974 at institutions across the state. In 2013, North Carolina became one of the few states to approve compensation for surviving victims. Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, the state's first psychiatric hospital opened in 1856 and named after the mental health reformer, operated for over 150 years before closing in 2012.

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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 North Carolina

North Carolina is home to the Brown Mountain Lights, one of America's most enduring and scientifically investigated supernatural phenomena. Witnesses have reported seeing mysterious glowing orbs floating above Brown Mountain in Burke County since at least 1913, when the U.S. Geological Survey investigated them. Despite multiple scientific expeditions, no definitive explanation has been accepted, and Cherokee legend attributes the lights to the spirits of women searching for warriors lost in battle.

The Devil's Tramping Ground near Siler City is a barren circle approximately 40 feet in diameter where nothing grows, and objects placed in the circle are said to be moved overnight. Local legend holds that the Devil paces the circle each night, planning his evil deeds. In Wilmington, the Bellamy Mansion, built in 1861, is haunted by the apparition of a slave who reportedly died on the property. The Battleship USS North Carolina, moored in Wilmington as a museum ship, is one of the most actively investigated haunted locations in the state—overnight visitors and crew members have reported seeing the ghost of a blond-haired sailor and hearing hatch doors slam shut on their own.

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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 North Carolina

Old Baker Sanatorium (Lumberton): Baker Sanatorium, established in 1920 by Dr. A.T. Baker in the Lumbee community of Robeson County, served as one of the few hospitals available to Native Americans in the segregated South. The abandoned facility is said to be haunted by the spirits of patients who died during the tuberculosis epidemic, with witnesses reporting flickering lights and whispered Lumbee prayers in the empty wards.

Dorothea Dix Hospital (Raleigh): Operating from 1856 to 2012, Dorothea Dix Hospital treated psychiatric patients for over 150 years. The campus, now being redeveloped into a public park, was the site of reported hauntings including the ghost of a woman in Victorian dress seen near the original administration building and unexplained moaning heard from the tunnels that connected buildings underground.

Types of Phenomena in the Book

Distribution across 26 physician accounts

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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

North Carolina's rich medical heritage, from Duke University Medical Center's cutting-edge research to the rural mountain clinics where Appalachian physicians serve isolated communities, provides a spectrum of clinical settings where the extraordinary experiences documented in Dr. Kolbaba's Physicians' Untold Stories are encountered. The state's unique blend of scientific medicine and deep folk traditions creates an environment where physicians trained in evidence-based practice—as Dr. Kolbaba was at Mayo Clinic—must nevertheless reckon with patient experiences that fall outside the boundaries of conventional medical explanation.

For nurses near Laguna, Cary, North Carolina—the largest and most underrecognized group of witnesses to unexplainable medical events—this book provides long-overdue validation. Southern nurses have been sharing these stories among themselves for generations, always in whispers, always off the record. When a physician publishes the same accounts under his own name, the hierarchy shifts: the nurse's experience is no longer gossip. It's data.

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

Gardening has been associated with reduced cortisol levels, improved mood, and lower BMI in regular practitioners.

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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