
The Miracles Doctors in Victory, Tigard Have Witnessed
For patients in Victory, Tigard, Oregon who are navigating serious illness, the question of whether to integrate faith into their healing process is deeply personal and often fraught. Some fear that relying on faith will lead them to reject necessary medical treatment. Others worry that seeking medical care betrays a lack of faith. Dr. Scott Kolbaba's "Physicians' Untold Stories" offers a third way — a vision of faith and medicine as complementary rather than competing forces, each strengthening the other in the service of healing. This vision, articulated through the testimonies of physicians who have lived it, provides a practical framework for patients who want to honor both their faith and their medical care.

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
Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States in 1849.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Victory, Tigard
Physicians practicing in Victory, Tigard, Oregon 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 Victory, Tigard 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 Victory, Tigard 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 term "bedside manner" was first used in the mid-19th century to describe a physician's demeanor with patients.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Victory, Tigard
The Pacific Northwest's Indigenous scholars near Victory, Tigard, Oregon bring perspectives to NDE research that Western academics lack. The Tulalip, Muckleshoot, and Puyallup nations have traditions about the spirit world that parallel NDE descriptions with remarkable specificity. Indigenous NDE researchers who can bridge traditional knowledge and Western science are producing scholarship that enriches both traditions.
The Pacific Northwest's tradition of death cafes near Victory, Tigard, Oregon—informal gatherings where strangers discuss death over coffee and cake—has created a community of death-literate citizens who receive NDE reports with sophistication rather than fear. Death cafe participants who later experience or witness NDEs bring a conversational readiness to the experience that allows them to process it more quickly and share it more openly.
Medical Fact
The human body contains about 2.5 million sweat glands distributed across the skin.
Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Victory, Tigard
Free community mental health resources near Victory, Tigard, Oregon—crisis lines, peer support groups, walking meditation circles—reflect the Pacific Northwest's recognition that mental health is a public good, not a private luxury. The region's high awareness of depression and seasonal affective disorder has produced support infrastructure that reaches people who would never seek formal treatment.
The Pacific Northwest's tradition of public art near Victory, Tigard, Oregon—murals, sculptures, installations in hospitals and on their grounds—provides healing through environmental beauty. A patient who walks past a glass sculpture that captures the morning light, or sits in a garden with a bronze figure of a nurse, receives aesthetic nourishment that supplements their medical treatment. The Pacific Northwest heals through beauty because it believes beauty matters.
Did You Know?
The human heart begins beating approximately 22 days after conception — before the brain has fully formed.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Victory, Tigard, Oregon
Death doula services near Victory, Tigard, Oregon—the Pacific Northwest's contribution to end-of-life care—provide spiritual, emotional, and practical support for dying patients and their families. Death doulas, who may or may not hold specific religious beliefs, offer a presence that is sacred without being sectarian. They sit vigil, facilitate conversations, and help families navigate the dying process with an expertise that combines midwifery's intimacy with chaplaincy's spiritual depth.
The Pacific Northwest's tradition of land acknowledgment near Victory, Tigard, Oregon—publicly recognizing that institutions exist on indigenous land—has expanded into hospital spiritual care. Some Pacific Northwest hospitals begin staff meetings and patient interactions with an acknowledgment that the healing happening within their walls takes place on land that was healing people long before the building existed. This practice reframes the hospital as a guest on sacred ground.
Reader Ratings Distribution
Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings
Did You Know?
Dr. Kolbaba found that physicians who had experienced the death of a close family member were more open to discussing unexplained phenomena.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
Did You Know?
Hippocrates described over 60 diseases in his writings — many of his clinical observations remain accurate today.
Medical Heritage in Oregon
Oregon's medical history begins with the physicians who accompanied the Oregon Trail migrations in the 1840s. The Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, established in 1887 as the University of Oregon Medical School, sits atop Marquam Hill and has become the Pacific Northwest's leading academic medical center. OHSU gained national recognition for its work in neonatal medicine—Dr. Lois Johnson pioneered surfactant therapy for premature infant lung disease—and for establishing one of the first comprehensive cancer centers on the West Coast, the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, which received a transformative $500 million donation from Nike co-founder Phil Knight in 2013.
Oregon has been a leader in end-of-life care legislation. In 1994, Oregon voters passed the Death with Dignity Act, making it the first U.S. state to legalize physician-assisted death for terminally ill patients. This landmark law fundamentally changed the national conversation about end-of-life autonomy. Providence Health & Services, rooted in the arrival of the Sisters of Providence in Oregon in 1856, grew from St. Vincent Hospital in Portland into one of the West Coast's largest health systems. The Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the setting of Ken Kesey's 1962 novel 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' has a complex history spanning from its 1883 opening through controversies over patient treatment to its modern rebuilding completed in 2011.
About the Book
Dr. Kolbaba donates a portion of book proceeds to charitable causes, including the Romanian orphanage supported by REMM.
Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Oregon
Oregon's supernatural folklore is steeped in the dark forests and rugged coastline of the Pacific Northwest. The Bandage Man of Cannon Beach is a local legend dating to at least the 1950s—a figure wrapped in bloody bandages reportedly attacks parked cars along U.S. Route 101 near the coast, pounding on vehicles and leaving behind the smell of rotting flesh. Some versions trace the origin to a logger who was mangled in a sawmill accident.
The Shanghai Tunnels beneath Portland's Old Town are a network of underground passages once used, according to legend, to kidnap ("shanghai") men into forced labor on ships in the late 1800s. Tours of the tunnels report encounters with shadowy figures, cold spots, and the sensation of being grabbed. The White Eagle Saloon in Portland, a former hotel and bar built in 1905 that catered to Polish and Eastern European immigrants, is considered one of Oregon's most haunted buildings—bartenders and patrons report hearing a woman's scream from the upper floors, attributed to a former prostitute named Rose who was murdered in the building.
About the Book
Dr. Kolbaba has been featured in local and national media discussing the intersection of medicine and the unexplained.
Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Oregon
Eastern Oregon State Hospital (Pendleton): The Eastern Oregon State Hospital in Pendleton operated from 1913 to the 1970s. The facility, which treated psychiatric patients using methods including hydrotherapy and lobotomy, is associated with reports of unexplained crying and banging from the abandoned patient wards. The tunnels beneath the facility are said to be particularly active with paranormal phenomena.
Oregon State Hospital (Salem): The Oregon State Hospital, immortalized in Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' has operated since 1883 and has a deeply troubled history. In 1913, over 3,500 copper urns containing the cremated remains of unclaimed patients were discovered in a storage area—later memorialized in a dedicated facility. Staff in the older buildings reported seeing apparitions of patients and hearing screams from wards that were empty, particularly near the electroshock therapy rooms.
Types of Phenomena in the Book
Distribution across 26 physician accounts
Research Finding
Forest bathing (spending time among trees) has been shown to reduce cortisol, blood pressure, and heart rate in multiple studies.
How This Book Can Help You
Oregon's pioneering Death with Dignity Act places the state at the forefront of the medical and ethical questions surrounding end-of-life care that Dr. Kolbaba explores from a different angle in Physicians' Untold Stories. Where Oregon's law empowers patients to choose the timing of their death, Dr. Kolbaba's accounts reveal phenomena that suggest the dying process itself may hold dimensions beyond medical control. The physicians at OHSU and throughout Oregon's healthcare system, trained in the state's progressive tradition of honest conversations about death, represent the kind of practitioners most likely to openly share the unexplainable experiences that Dr. Kolbaba, at Northwestern Medicine, has made it his mission to document.
The Pacific Northwest's 'third place' culture near Victory, Tigard, Oregon—the coffee shops, bookstores, and brewpubs where people gather to think—provides the ideal setting for reading and discussing this book. These communal spaces, where strangers become conversants and conversation becomes collaboration, are where the book's most important impact occurs: not in solitary reading but in shared exploration.

Research Finding
Journaling about stressful experiences has been shown to improve wound healing by 76% compared to non-journaling controls.
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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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