
When Medicine Meets the Miraculous in Phoenix, Lima
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 Phoenix, Lima, 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.

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 →Praised by Kirkus Reviews. Featured on Provocative Enlightenment Radio, The Higher Side Chats, Paranormal UK Radio, and many more.
Medical Fact
Your small intestine is lined with approximately 5 million tiny finger-like projections called villi to maximize nutrient absorption.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Phoenix, Lima
Physicians practicing in Phoenix, Lima, 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 Phoenix, Lima 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 Phoenix, Lima 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
Aspirin was first synthesized in 1897 by Felix Hoffmann at Bayer and remains one of the most widely used medications.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Phoenix, Lima
The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, has been quietly investigating consciousness phenomena for decades, and its influence extends to every medical facility near Phoenix, Lima, Ohio. When a Mayo-trained physician encounters a patient's NDE report, they bring to the conversation an institutional culture that values empirical observation over ideological dismissal. The Midwest's most prestigious medical institution doesn't ignore what it can't explain.
The Midwest's land-grant universities near Phoenix, Lima, Ohio are beginning to fund NDE research through their psychology and neuroscience departments, applying the same empirical methodology they use for crop science and animal husbandry. There's something appropriately Midwestern about treating consciousness research with the same practical seriousness as soybean yield optimization: if the data is there, study it. If it's not, move on.
Medical Fact
The spleen filters about 200 milliliters of blood per minute and removes old or damaged red blood cells.
Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Phoenix, Lima
Small-town doctor culture in the Midwest near Phoenix, Lima, Ohio produced a form of medicine that modern healthcare systems are trying to recapture: the physician who knows every patient by name, who makes house calls in snowstorms, who takes payment in chickens when cash is scarce. This wasn't quaint—it was effective. Longitudinal relationships between doctors and patients produce better outcomes than any algorithm.
Veterinary medicine in the Midwest near Phoenix, Lima, Ohio has contributed more to human health than most people realize. The large-animal veterinarians who develop treatments for livestock diseases provide a testing ground for approaches later adapted to human medicine. Midwest physicians who grew up on farms carry this One Health perspective—the understanding that human, animal, and environmental health are inseparable.
Did You Know?
The human heart has its own electrical system — it can continue to beat even when removed from the body.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Phoenix, Lima, Ohio
German immigrant faith practices near Phoenix, Lima, Ohio blended Lutheran piety with folk medicine in ways that persist in Midwest medical culture. The Braucher—a folk healer who combined prayer, herbal remedies, and sympathetic magic—was a fixture of German-American communities well into the 20th century. Modern physicians who serve these communities occasionally encounter patients who've consulted a Braucher before visiting the clinic.
The Midwest's megachurch movement near Phoenix, Lima, Ohio has produced health ministries of surprising sophistication—exercise classes, nutrition counseling, cancer support groups, mental health workshops—all delivered within a faith framework that motivates participation. When a pastor tells a congregation that caring for the body is a form of worship, gym attendance among parishioners increases more than any secular fitness campaign achieves.
Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
Did You Know?
The term "miracle" appears in peer-reviewed medical literature more than 3,500 times.
Lima: Where History, Medicine, and the Supernatural Converge
Lima's supernatural traditions layer Inca and pre-Inca beliefs with colonial Catholicism. The catacombs beneath the San Francisco Monastery, containing 25,000 sets of remains, are among Peru's most visited spiritual sites. The Peruvian tradition of curanderismo (folk healing) incorporates communication with spirits, the use of sacred plants like ayahuasca and San Pedro cactus, and rituals derived from pre-Columbian traditions. Lima's colonial churches are sites of reported miracles—the Church of Las Nazarenas houses the Señor de los Milagros (Lord of Miracles), a painting of a dark-skinned Christ that survived the devastating 1746 earthquake, and whose annual procession draws hundreds of thousands. Peruvian folklore includes the pishtaco, a ghostly figure who steals body fat from the living, and the jarjacha, a two-headed llama spirit. The pre-Inca Pachacamac temple complex outside Lima was an oracle site where priests communicated with the dead.
Lima's medical heritage dates to the Spanish colonial period. The Hospital Arzobispo Loayza, founded in 1549, is one of the oldest hospitals in the Western Hemisphere. The University of San Marcos, founded in Lima in 1551, established one of the first medical faculties in the New World. Peru has contributed significantly to tropical medicine—Daniel Alcides Carrión, a Peruvian medical student, fatally injected himself with material from a patient with verruga peruana in 1885 to prove it was the same disease as Oroya fever, demonstrating the connection at the cost of his own life. The Peruvian bark (quinine), derived from the cinchona tree native to the Andes, was the world's first effective treatment for malaria and revolutionized tropical medicine.
Did You Know?
The oldest known hospital still in operation is the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris, founded in 651 CE — nearly 1,400 years ago.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
About the Book
The book addresses the question of why physicians — trained in science and skepticism — are uniquely positioned to witness the unexplained.
Notable Locations in Lima
Catacombs of the San Francisco Monastery: Beneath the Basilica of San Francisco in central Lima lie catacombs containing the remains of an estimated 25,000 people, arranged in circular bone pits; visitors report ghostly encounters, unexplained sounds, and a pervasive sense of unease in the underground chambers.
The House of the Countess (Casa de la Condesa de Lemus): This colonial-era mansion is said to be haunted by the ghost of the Countess, who reportedly wanders the corridors weeping over a lost love, and is considered one of Lima's most persistently haunted buildings.
El Cementerio Presbítero Matías Maestro: Founded in 1808, this is the largest cemetery in Lima and contains elaborate mausoleums and monuments; it is surrounded by legends and ghost stories, particularly about victims of Lima's cholera epidemics and the War of the Pacific.
Hospital Nacional Arzobispo Loayza: Founded in 1549 by the Archbishop of Lima, Loayza is one of the oldest hospitals in the Americas and continues to serve as one of Peru's most important public hospitals, treating hundreds of thousands of patients annually.
Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo: Founded in 1875 and named after the date of Peru's independence battle, Dos de Mayo is one of Lima's principal teaching hospitals and has been central to Peruvian medical education for nearly 150 years.
About the Book
The book has a 4.5-star rating from over 1,000 readers on Amazon.
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
Acupuncture has been shown to reduce chronic pain by 50% in meta-analyses involving over 20,000 patients.
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
Progressive muscle relaxation reduces insomnia severity by 45% and decreases the time to fall asleep.
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.
“An Amazon bestseller with over 1,000 ratings and a 4.5-star average, praised by Kirkus Reviews for its compelling accounts.”
— 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.
For the spouses and families of Midwest physicians near Phoenix, Lima, Ohio, this book explains something they've long sensed: that the doctor who comes home quiet after a shift is carrying more than clinical fatigue. The experiences described in these pages—encounters with the dying, the dead, and the in-between—extract a spiritual toll that medical training never mentions and medical culture never addresses.

Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
“Dreams foretelling future events, apparitions, and other miraculous experiences come to life within the pages of 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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