The Miracles Doctors in Deerfield, Cincinnati Have Witnessed

The relationship between reading and healing has been explored by researchers across disciplines, from James Pennebaker's work on expressive writing at the University of Texas to the growing field of literary medicine. Pennebaker's landmark studies demonstrated that writing about traumatic experiences—and, by extension, engaging with narratives that address similar themes—produces measurable improvements in physical and psychological health, including enhanced immune function, reduced physician visits, and decreased symptoms of depression. In Deerfield, Cincinnati, Ohio, "Physicians' Untold Stories" engages this therapeutic mechanism. Readers who encounter Dr. Kolbaba's extraordinary accounts are invited into a narrative process that mirrors the expressive writing paradigm: confronting death, loss, and mystery through story, and emerging with a more coherent, more hopeful understanding of their own experience.

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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"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

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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 Deerfield, Cincinnati

Physicians practicing in Deerfield, Cincinnati, 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 Deerfield, Cincinnati 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 Deerfield, Cincinnati 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

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 Deerfield, Cincinnati, Ohio

Polish Catholic communities near Deerfield, Cincinnati, 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 Deerfield, Cincinnati, 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.

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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 Deerfield, Cincinnati, 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 Deerfield, Cincinnati, 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 Deerfield, Cincinnati, 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.

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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 Deerfield, Cincinnati

Community hospitals near Deerfield, Cincinnati, 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 Deerfield, Cincinnati, 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)

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Did You Know?

The human body produces about 1 ounce of tears per hour during crying — enough to fill a bathtub over a lifetime.

Cincinnati: Where History, Medicine, and the Supernatural Converge

Cincinnati's Music Hall, one of the most beautiful concert venues in America, sits atop an estimated 200,000 human remains from the former potter's field that once occupied the site. During a 2017 renovation, workers discovered additional human bones, and paranormal investigators have documented extensive activity including apparitions, voices, and unexplained sounds throughout the building. Bobby Mackey's Music World, across the river in Wilder, Kentucky, is perhaps the most investigated 'haunted' bar in America, with its history connecting to a 1896 murder, Satanic rumors, and claims of a 'portal to hell' in the basement. Cincinnati's abandoned subway tunnels, a never-completed transit project from the 1920s, stretch beneath the streets and have generated decades of ghost stories. The city's German heritage, particularly its 19th-century 'Over-the-Rhine' neighborhood (named for the Rhine-like canal German immigrants crossed), brings Old World supernatural traditions to an American setting.

Cincinnati holds a distinguished place in medical history as the city where Dr. Albert Sabin developed the oral polio vaccine (OPV) at the University of Cincinnati in the late 1950s. While Jonas Salk's injectable vaccine came first, Sabin's oral vaccine was easier to administer, cheaper to produce, and provided longer-lasting immunity, becoming the primary weapon in the global campaign to eradicate polio. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, founded in 1883, has been a pioneer in pediatric medicine and is consistently ranked among the top children's hospitals in the country. The city was also home to Dr. Daniel Drake, a 19th-century physician considered the most important medical figure in the American West, who founded the Medical College of Ohio (now UC College of Medicine) in 1819 and wrote extensive treatises on diseases of the Mississippi Valley.

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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

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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 Cincinnati

Music Hall: Built in 1878 over the former potter's field (pauper cemetery) of Cincinnati, this concert venue is considered one of the most haunted performance spaces in America, with workers discovering human remains during renovations as recently as 2017.

Bobby Mackey's Music World: Located across the river in Wilder, Kentucky, this honky-tonk bar is called 'the most haunted nightclub in America,' built on the site of a former slaughterhouse and connected to a gruesome 1896 murder.

Cincinnati Subway tunnels: The abandoned, never-completed subway system built between 1920 and 1927 lies beneath the city streets, and its dark tunnels are the subject of ghost stories and urban legends about spectral figures.

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center: Consistently ranked among the top three children's hospitals in the United States, it is a leading center for pediatric research and was one of the first children's hospitals in America, founded in 1883.

University of Cincinnati Medical Center: The primary teaching hospital for the UC College of Medicine (founded 1819) and a Level I trauma center, this hospital was the site where Dr. Albert Sabin developed the oral polio vaccine in the 1960s.

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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

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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.

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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 Deerfield, Cincinnati, 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.

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

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, 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