
True Stories From the Hospitals of Lincoln, Barrington
For generations, the people of Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island have understood that healing involves more than medication and surgery—that prayer, community, and faith play roles that are real even if they resist measurement. "Physicians' Untold Stories" by Dr. Scott Kolbaba provides something remarkable: medical professionals confirming what communities of faith have long believed. The physicians in this book describe experiences of divine intervention with the same observational rigor they apply to any clinical phenomenon. They document the timing, the circumstances, the before-and-after comparisons. And what they document is extraordinary: outcomes that defy statistical probability, interventions that arrive through channels science cannot identify, and a persistent sense that human healing is embedded in a larger, purposeful reality. This book is a bridge between the clinic and the congregation, offering both communities language they can share.

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 shivered. I cried. I read some out loud to the spouse. Please write more." — Amazon Review
Medical Fact
Newborn babies can breathe and swallow at the same time — a skill they lose at about 7 months of age.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Lincoln, Barrington
Physicians practicing in Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island 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 Lincoln, Barrington 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 Lincoln, Barrington 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 laryngeal nerve in a giraffe travels 15 feet — from the brain down the neck and back up — to reach the larynx.
Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Lincoln, Barrington
The immigrant communities that built the Northeast brought not only labor but rich healing traditions to hospitals near Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island. Italian nonne with herbal remedies, Irish grandmothers with poultice recipes, Jewish bubbies with chicken soup prescriptions—these weren't superseded by modern medicine so much as absorbed into it. The best Northeast physicians know that healing has many valid sources.
Rehabilitation centers near Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island are places where hope is tested and rebuilt daily. A patient who lost a limb learns to walk again. A stroke survivor relearns the alphabet. A burn victim looks in a mirror. The therapists who guide these journeys know that physical recovery is only half the work—the other half is helping patients reimagine what their lives can be.
Medical Fact
Writing about emotional experiences (expressive writing) has been shown to improve immune function and reduce healthcare visits.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island
The Quaker tradition of sitting in silence with the suffering has influenced medical practice near Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island in ways that transcend religious affiliation. The concept of 'holding someone in the Light'—maintaining a compassionate, non-anxious presence—describes what the best physicians do instinctively. It's a spiritual practice that doubles as a clinical skill.
The Northeast's Hindu and Jain communities near Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island bring karma-based frameworks to medical decision-making that can confuse unprepared physicians. A patient who views their illness as the fruit of past-life actions isn't being fatalistic—they're contextualizing suffering within a cosmic framework that provides meaning. The physician's role isn't to dismantle this framework but to work within it toward healing.
Did You Know?
The average medical textbook is updated every 5-7 years, but medical knowledge doubles approximately every 73 days.
Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island
The old New England tradition of deathbed watches has evolved into something unexpected in modern Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island hospitals. Where Puritan families once gathered to witness the soul's departure, today's medical teams report the same phenomena their ancestors described—sudden drops in room temperature, the scent of flowers with no source, and the unmistakable feeling of a presence departing upward.
The garment district tragedies and tenement fires of the early 1900s created a reservoir of unresolved grief that still surfaces in Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island hospitals. Emergency physicians describe treating patients who arrive with burns that exactly mirror those of Triangle Shirtwaist victims, only to find no fire, no burns, and no patient when they look again. The city remembers what the living try to forget.
Types of Phenomena in the Book
Distribution across 26 physician accounts
Did You Know?
Medical school students in the U.S. typically complete over 5,000 hours of clinical rotations before graduating.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
Did You Know?
Dr. Kolbaba's research suggests that extraordinary experiences are not limited to any single medical specialty — they span all fields.
Medical Heritage in Rhode Island
Rhode Island, the smallest state, has an outsized medical legacy anchored by Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School, which traces its origins to the founding of the medical program in 1811. Rhode Island Hospital, established in 1863 during the Civil War to treat wounded soldiers, became Brown's primary teaching hospital and is now the state's largest acute care facility and only Level I trauma center. The hospital performed the state's first open-heart surgery in 1965. Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, founded in 1884 as the Providence Lying-In Hospital, has been a national leader in maternal-fetal medicine and reproductive health.
Rhode Island played a pivotal role in the history of public health. In 1892, Dr. Charles Chapin, the superintendent of health for Providence, became a pioneer of modern epidemiology, demonstrating that contact transmission—not filth or miasma—was the primary means of disease spread, fundamentally changing public health practice. Butler Hospital, established in 1844, was one of the first private psychiatric hospitals in the United States and treated notable patients including Edgar Allan Poe's fiancée Sarah Helen Whitman. The former Rhode Island State Institution at Howard, which housed the state's poor, mentally ill, and chronically sick, reveals the darker history of institutional care in the state.
About the Book
The book includes an appendix with resources for readers interested in learning more about NDEs and end-of-life phenomena.
Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Rhode Island
Rhode Island has one of the most fascinating supernatural traditions in New England: the Vampire Panic of the 19th century. In 1892, the body of Mercy Brown, a 19-year-old woman who died of tuberculosis in Exeter, was exhumed because her family and neighbors believed she was feeding on the living from her grave. Her heart was removed and burned, and the ashes were mixed into a tonic for her sick brother Edwin—a practice reflecting genuine folk beliefs about the undead. The Mercy Brown incident is one of the best-documented cases of vampire folklore in American history and may have influenced Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The Conjuring House in Harrisville, made famous by the 2013 horror film, is a real farmhouse where the Perron family reported violent supernatural activity from 1971 to 1980, documented by paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The family described being physically assaulted, hearing voices, and seeing the apparition of a woman named Bathsheba Sherman, a 19th-century resident accused of witchcraft. Fort Adams in Newport, one of the largest coastal fortifications in the United States, is reportedly haunted by soldiers who died of disease within its walls during the Civil War.
About the Book
The success of the book has led to increased academic interest in studying physicians' spiritual experiences as a field of inquiry.
Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Rhode Island
Butler Hospital (Providence): Founded in 1844, Butler Hospital is one of the oldest private psychiatric facilities in the country. The historic campus, designed by landscape architect H.W.S. Cleveland, is associated with reports of apparitions in the older buildings, including the figure of a woman in Victorian dress seen in the gardens. Edgar Allan Poe courted Sarah Helen Whitman on the hospital grounds, and some claim to have seen a dark-cloaked figure resembling the poet near the entrance.
Rhode Island State Institution at Howard (Cranston): The state institution at Howard, established in 1870, housed impoverished, mentally ill, and chronically sick Rhode Islanders. The facility's history includes documented neglect and overcrowding. Portions of the complex that have been converted for other uses are said to be haunted—workers have reported hearing crying from walls, seeing figures in period clothing in the corridors, and experiencing cold spots in buildings that formerly housed patient wards.
Types of Phenomena in the Book
Distribution across 26 physician accounts
Research Finding
Singing in a choir has been associated with increased oxytocin levels and reduced cortisol in participants.
How This Book Can Help You
Rhode Island's intimate scale—where physicians at Rhode Island Hospital and Women & Infants know their patients and communities deeply—creates the kind of close clinical relationships where the extraordinary experiences Dr. Kolbaba describes in Physicians' Untold Stories are most likely to be shared. The state's own history of grappling with the boundary between life and death, from the Mercy Brown vampire exhumation to modern debates about end-of-life care, provides a cultural context for understanding why physicians here, like Dr. Kolbaba at Northwestern Medicine, might encounter and wrestle with phenomena that challenge the rational framework of their Mayo Clinic-caliber training.
Readers in Lincoln, Barrington, Rhode Island who work in the Northeast's dense network of teaching hospitals will recognize the professional dilemma at the heart of this book: how do you document an experience that your training tells you is impossible? The physicians who share their stories here chose honesty over professional safety, and that choice will resonate with every clinician who has kept a similar secret.

Research Finding
Omega-3 fatty acid supplementation has been associated with reduced depressive symptoms in multiple randomized controlled trials.
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Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5 stars from 1018 readers.
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