
The Miracles Doctors in Dogwood, Athens Have Witnessed
Sibling grief—the loss of a brother or sister—is often overlooked in a culture that focuses its grief support on spouses and parents. In Dogwood, Athens, Ohio, Physicians' Untold Stories speaks to siblings who have lost their lifelong companions. The physician accounts in Dr. Kolbaba's collection, which describe dying patients connecting with deceased siblings and other family members, offer bereaved siblings the same comfort they offer all who grieve: the possibility that the bond between siblings may persist beyond death, that the person who shared your childhood is not entirely gone.

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
The human hand has 27 bones, 29 joints, and 123 ligaments — making it one of the most complex structures in the body.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Dogwood, Athens
Physicians practicing in Dogwood, Athens, Ohio 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 Dogwood, Athens 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 Dogwood, Athens 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
Marie Curie's pioneering work on radioactivity led to the development of X-ray machines used in field hospitals during World War I.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Dogwood, Athens, Ohio
Polish Catholic communities near Dogwood, Athens, Ohio maintain healing devotions to the Black Madonna of Czestochowa—a tradition brought across the Atlantic and sustained through generations of immigration. Hospital rooms in Polish neighborhoods sometimes display replicas of the icon, and patients who pray before it report a comfort that transcends its artistic merit. The Black Madonna heals homesickness as much as physical illness.
Christmas Eve services at Midwest churches near Dogwood, Athens, Ohio—candlelit, hushed, with familiar carols sung in harmony—produce a collective peace that spills over into hospital wards. Chaplains report that Christmas Eve is the quietest night of the year in Midwest hospitals: fewer call lights, fewer complaints, fewer codes. Whether this reflects the peace of the season or simply lower census, the effect on those who remain in the hospital is measurable.
Medical Fact
Florence Nightingale was also a pioneering statistician — she invented the polar area diagram to visualize causes of death.
Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Dogwood, Athens, Ohio
The Eastland disaster of 1915, when a passenger ship capsized in the Chicago River killing 844 people, created a concentration of ghosts that persists in medical facilities throughout the Midwest near Dogwood, Athens, Ohio. The temporary morgue established at the Harpo Studios building is the most famous haunted site, but the Eastland's dead have been reported in hospitals across the Great Lakes region, as if the trauma dispersed geographically over time.
Lake Michigan's undertow has claimed swimmers near Dogwood, Athens, Ohio every summer for as long as anyone can remember. The ghosts of these drowning victims—many of them children—have been reported in lakeside hospitals with a seasonal regularity that matches the drowning statistics. They appear in June, peak in July, and fade by September, following the lake's lethal calendar.
Did You Know?
Approximately 1 in 5 Americans has reported a mystical or spiritually transformative experience at some point in their life.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Dogwood, Athens
Community hospitals near Dogwood, Athens, Ohio where physicians know their patients personally are uniquely positioned to document NDE aftereffects—the lasting psychological, spiritual, and behavioral changes that follow near-death experiences. A family doctor who's treated a patient for twenty years can detect the subtle shifts in personality, values, and life priorities that NDE experiencers consistently report. This longitudinal observation is impossible in large, rotating-staff medical centers.
The Midwest's public radio stations near Dogwood, Athens, Ohio have produced some of the most thoughtful NDE journalism in the country—long-form interviews with researchers, experiencers, and skeptics that treat the subject with the same seriousness applied to agricultural policy or education reform. This media coverage has normalized NDE discussion in a region where public radio is as influential as the local newspaper.
Near-Death Experience Features
Percentage reporting each feature (van Lommel et al., 2001)
Did You Know?
The human body produces about 1 ounce of tears per hour during crying — enough to fill a bathtub over a lifetime.
Athens: Where History, Medicine, and the Supernatural Converge
Greece has one of the oldest and richest supernatural traditions in Western civilization. Ancient Greek religion populated the landscape with gods, nymphs, spirits, and monsters, and many of these beliefs persist in Greek folk tradition. The neraida (nereids, water spirits) and vrykolakas (Greek vampires or revenants) are central figures in modern Greek folklore. The evil eye (mati) remains a deeply held belief in Greek culture—blue eye-shaped amulets are ubiquitous, and prayers against the evil eye are regularly performed. Athens' ancient sites, particularly the Acropolis and the Kerameikos cemetery, are treated with spiritual reverence. Davelis Cave on Mount Penteli has been associated with supernatural phenomena from ancient times to the present. The Greek Orthodox Church maintains rich traditions around miracles, weeping icons, and saints' relics, and the annual miracle of the Holy Fire at Easter, though centered in Jerusalem, is deeply important to Athenian religious life.
Athens is the birthplace of Western medicine. Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460-370 BC), considered the 'Father of Medicine,' established the principle that diseases had natural causes rather than divine origins and created the Hippocratic Oath, which physicians still swear today. Ancient Greek physicians in the Athenian sphere—including Galen, Herophilus, and Erasistratus—made foundational discoveries in anatomy, physiology, and clinical medicine. The Asclepeion healing temples, where patients underwent ritual incubation (sleeping in the temple to receive healing dreams), represent one of the earliest forms of organized medical care. Modern Athens' medical system is anchored by Evangelismos Hospital, founded in 1881, and the city's medical schools continue to train physicians in a tradition stretching back 2,500 years.
Did You Know?
The human body can detect temperature changes as small as 0.01°C through specialized nerve endings in the skin.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
About the Book
Dr. Kolbaba's interviews took place in settings ranging from hospital cafeterias to private offices to late-night phone calls.
Notable Locations in Athens
The Acropolis: While not traditionally 'haunted' in the Western sense, the ancient Parthenon and surrounding ruins have been associated with supernatural experiences by visitors who report feeling powerful spiritual presences, hearing ancient music, and witnessing ghostly processions of priests and priestesses.
The First Cemetery of Athens: This 19th-century cemetery, filled with elaborate neoclassical sculptures including the famous 'Sleeping Girl' (Koimomeni) statue, is the subject of ghost stories, with visitors reporting the sensation of being watched by the marble figures.
Davelis Cave (Penteli): This ancient cave on Mount Penteli near Athens has been associated with supernatural phenomena for millennia, from ancient cult worship to modern reports of UFOs and paranormal activity; military installations sealed part of the cave in the 1980s, adding to its mystery.
Evangelismos Hospital: Founded in 1881 by Queen Olga, Evangelismos is the largest and most historic hospital in Greece, serving as the country's primary referral center and a teaching hospital for the University of Athens Medical School.
Hippocration General Hospital: Named after Hippocrates, the father of medicine, this Athens hospital honors the ancient Greek physician who established medicine as a rational science on the nearby island of Kos around 400 BC.
About the Book
The book addresses the tension between scientific materialism and the experiences physicians witness that defy materialist explanations.
Medical Heritage in Ohio
Ohio has been a crucible of medical innovation since the 19th century. The Cleveland Clinic, founded in 1921 by four physicians who served together in World War I—including Dr. George Crile, a pioneer of blood transfusion—has become one of the world's foremost medical institutions, performing the first near-total face transplant in the United States in 2008 and pioneering cardiac surgery under Dr. Denton Cooley and Dr. Michael DeBakey. The University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (established 1843), performed the first successful open-heart surgery using deep hypothermia in 1956.
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, opened in 1883, ranks consistently among the top pediatric hospitals in the nation and has been a leader in gene therapy research. The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus is one of the largest academic health centers in the country. Ohio also holds a dark chapter in medical history: the Tuskegee-like Cincinnati radiation experiments of the 1960s and 1970s at the University of Cincinnati, where patients—mostly poor and African American—were subjected to whole-body radiation without fully informed consent. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton has contributed to aerospace medicine since the 1940s, advancing the understanding of human physiology at extreme altitudes and G-forces.
Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
Research Finding
Community supported agriculture (CSA) participation is associated with increased vegetable consumption and reduced food insecurity.
Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Ohio
Ohio's supernatural landscape is dominated by the haunted legends of its industrial cities and rural back roads. The Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, built in 1886 and operational until 1990, is considered one of the most haunted buildings in America. The Romanesque Gothic fortress—which served as the filming location for The Shawshank Redemption—is the site of reported apparitions including the ghost of Warden Arthur Glattke's wife, who accidentally shot herself in her quarters in 1950. The solitary confinement wing and the massive cell blocks, where inmates lived in conditions described as inhumane by federal courts, are paranormal investigation hotspots.
The village of Helltown in Summit County is actually the abandoned town of Boston Township, cleared by the National Park Service in the 1970s for the creation of Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Legends of satanic churches, mutant animals, and a "crybaby bridge" where an infant's wail can be heard have made it a magnet for thrill-seekers. Moonville Tunnel in Vinton County, a disused railroad tunnel in the remote hills of Appalachian Ohio, is said to be haunted by the ghosts of railroad workers killed by passing trains—a swinging lantern light is reportedly seen inside the tunnel on dark nights.
Research Finding
Spending 120 minutes per week in nature — in any combination — is associated with significantly better health and wellbeing.
Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Ohio
Cleveland State Hospital (Cleveland): The Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, later Cleveland State Hospital, operated from 1855 to 1980. At its peak, it held nearly 3,000 patients. After closure, workers demolishing the buildings reported encountering ghostly figures and unexplained sounds. The hospital cemetery contains over 700 patients buried under numbered markers rather than names.
Athens Lunatic Asylum (The Ridges, Athens): The Athens Lunatic Asylum, renamed The Ridges, operated from 1874 to 1993. In 1979, patient Margaret Schilling disappeared and was found dead a month later in an unused ward; her body left a permanent stain on the floor that remains visible today despite attempts to clean it. Her ghost is the most commonly reported apparition, but staff and visitors have also described hearing voices and seeing lights in the abandoned buildings.
“Over 200 physicians interviewed. 26 of the most miraculous experiences of their careers, chronicled in one book.”
— Physicians' Untold Stories
How This Book Can Help You
Ohio's extraordinary concentration of medical institutions—from the Cleveland Clinic to Cincinnati Children's to Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center—means that thousands of physicians have encountered the kind of boundary-between-life-and-death moments that Dr. Kolbaba explores in Physicians' Untold Stories. The Cleveland Clinic's pioneering work in cardiac surgery, where patients are brought to the very edge of death and back during complex procedures, creates clinical situations that parallel the extraordinary phenomena Dr. Kolbaba documented during his career at Northwestern Medicine, grounded in the rigorous training he received at Mayo Clinic.
Emergency medical technicians near Dogwood, Athens, Ohio—the first responders who arrive at cardiac arrests in farmhouses, on roadsides, and in grain elevators—will find their own experiences reflected in this book. The EMT who performed CPR in a snowdrift and felt something leave the patient's body, the paramedic who heard a flatlined patient whisper 'not yet'—these stories are the Midwest's own, and this book tells them with the respect they deserve.

Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
“Sometimes all we need to do is believe. — From the introduction to Physicians' Untold Stories”
— Physicians' Untold Stories
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Discover the Stories Medicine Never Says Out Loud
Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5 stars from 1018 readers.
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