What Doctors in St. Johnsbury Have Seen That Science Can't Explain
In the quiet hills of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where the Passumpsic River winds through a landscape of resilience and faith, physicians are discovering that the most profound healings often defy explanation. Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba's 'Physicians' Untold Stories' finds a natural home here, where 200+ doctors' accounts of ghost encounters, near-death experiences, and miracles resonate with a community that has long woven spirituality into the fabric of rural healthcare.
Resonance of the Book's Themes in St. Johnsbury, Vermont
In St. Johnsbury, where the Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital serves as a hub for rural healthcare, the themes of Dr. Kolbaba's book strike a deep chord. This community, nestled in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, holds a strong tradition of blending practical resilience with spiritual openness, making it fertile ground for stories of ghost encounters and near-death experiences. Local physicians often encounter patients who describe inexplicable moments of peace during medical crises, reflecting the region's cultural acceptance of the supernatural as part of the healing journey.
The book's exploration of faith and medicine resonates strongly here, where many residents rely on both conventional care and personal spirituality. St. Johnsbury's historic churches and close-knit community foster an environment where doctors feel comfortable sharing stories of miraculous recoveries—like a patient surviving a severe stroke after a family prayer vigil. These narratives align with local values, where the line between clinical practice and transcendent experience is often blurred, offering a unique lens for understanding health in this rural setting.
Moreover, the region's harsh winters and isolated geography create a shared sense of vulnerability and interdependence, amplifying the book's message that unexplained phenomena can occur even in the most scientific settings. Physicians in St. Johnsbury report that patients frequently recount dreams or visions that precede diagnoses, a phenomenon that Dr. Kolbaba's work validates, encouraging a more holistic approach to care that honors both evidence and mystery.
Patient Experiences and Healing in the Northeast Kingdom
In St. Johnsbury, patient experiences often mirror the hope-filled narratives in 'Physicians' Untold Stories.' Take, for instance, the story of a local logger who survived a catastrophic chainsaw accident after paramedics reported feeling an unexplained warmth guiding their hands—a moment his surgeon later called 'medical intuition.' Such accounts are common here, where the region's rugged lifestyle and tight community bonds foster a belief in miracles, giving patients and families strength during prolonged recoveries.
The book's emphasis on hope is particularly poignant for St. Johnsbury's aging population, many of whom face chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes in a setting with limited specialist access. One patient at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital described seeing a soft light during a cardiac arrest, which she credits with giving her the will to live. Her story, shared in local support groups, echoes the book's theme that unexplained phenomena can be a source of resilience, transforming fear into a shared spiritual experience.
Healing in this region also involves community-driven rituals, such as the annual 'Healing Walk' along the Passumpsic River, where survivors of illness gather to share stories. These events align with Dr. Kolbaba's message that miraculous recoveries often intertwine with collective support. A local nurse recalled a patient with terminal cancer who experienced a sudden remission after a community prayer circle—an event documented in the hospital's chaplaincy records, illustrating how hope and faith can complement medical treatment in profound ways.
Medical Fact
Hiccups are caused by involuntary contractions of the diaphragm — the longest recorded case lasted 68 years.
Physician Wellness and the Power of Sharing Stories in St. Johnsbury
For physicians in St. Johnsbury, the isolation of rural practice can take a toll on mental health, making Dr. Kolbaba's call to share stories a vital lifeline. Many doctors here work long hours at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital, often without the support networks found in urban centers. By sharing experiences of ghost encounters or near-death events, they find camaraderie and reduce burnout, transforming unsettling moments into opportunities for connection. The book's examples empower local physicians to speak openly, fostering a culture where vulnerability is seen as strength.
The region's medical community has embraced storytelling through informal gatherings, such as monthly 'Grand Rounds' at the hospital where clinicians discuss unexplained cases. One physician recounted a night when she felt a presence in the ER during a code, a story that resonated with colleagues who had similar experiences. These exchanges, inspired by 'Physicians' Untold Stories,' help normalize the extraordinary, reminding doctors that they are not alone in witnessing the inexplicable, which is crucial for sustaining compassion in a demanding field.
Moreover, St. Johnsbury's emphasis on holistic health—evident in its integration of local herbalists and meditation groups—supports physician wellness by validating the spiritual dimensions of care. Dr. Kolbaba's book serves as a resource for doctors to process the emotional weight of their work, encouraging them to journal or share stories with peers. This practice has been linked to lower stress levels and greater job satisfaction, as evidenced by a local study on rural healthcare providers, highlighting how narrative medicine can transform the healing environment in this unique Vermont community.
Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Vermont
Vermont's supernatural folklore reflects its remote Green Mountain landscape and tight-knit communities. The ghost of Emily's Bridge in Stowe—Gold Brook Covered Bridge—is one of the state's most famous haunted locations. According to legend, a young woman named Emily hanged herself from the bridge in the 19th century after being jilted by her lover, and her ghost scratches cars that pass through at night, leaving claw marks on roofs and doors. Visitors report hearing a woman's screams and the sound of a rope creaking.
The Green Mountain State also has a rich tradition of phantom hitchhiker stories, particularly along Route 100 through the mountain passes. Drivers report picking up a young woman who directs them to a house and then vanishes from the back seat; upon reaching the house, they are told the woman has been dead for years. Eddy House in Chittenden was the 19th-century home of the Eddy Brothers, William and Horatio, who conducted séances that attracted national attention—journalist Henry Steel Olcott investigated in 1874 and documented materializations that he claimed to have witnessed, later publishing them in "People from the Other World," which helped launch the Spiritualist movement in America.
Medical Fact
The thymus gland, critical to immune system development in children, shrinks significantly after puberty and is nearly gone by adulthood.
Death, Grief, and Cultural Traditions in Vermont
Vermont's death customs are shaped by its Yankee independence and back-to-the-land ethos. The state was an early leader in the green burial movement, with natural burial grounds like the one at the Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve in Newfield allowing families to bury their dead without embalming, in biodegradable shrouds or simple wooden boxes. Vermont also allows home funerals without a funeral director present, and many families take advantage of this right, washing and dressing the body themselves and holding vigils at home. In the state's Franco-American communities in the Northeast Kingdom, Catholic funeral traditions—including rosary wakes and requiem masses at parishes like St. Mary's in Newport—remain central to mourning, with the post-funeral meal featuring pork pies (tourtière) and sugar pie.
Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Vermont
Brattleboro Retreat (Brattleboro): Founded in 1834 as the Vermont Asylum for the Insane, the Brattleboro Retreat is one of the oldest psychiatric facilities in New England. The historic campus, with buildings dating to the Civil War era, is associated with reports of apparitions in the older dormitory wings, particularly a woman in Victorian dress seen in the former women's ward. Staff have described hearing whispered conversations and footsteps in corridors that are empty and locked.
Vermont State Hospital (Waterbury): The Vermont State Hospital for the Insane in Waterbury operated from 1891 until it was severely damaged by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Before its destruction, staff reported numerous paranormal experiences including doors that opened on their own, cold spots in patient rooms, and the silhouette of a man seen standing in windows of unoccupied wards. The hospital's patient cemetery, with over 400 burials, was said to be particularly unsettling after dark.
Near-Death Experience Research in United States
The United States is the global center of near-death experience research. Dr. Raymond Moody coined the term 'near-death experience' in his 1975 book 'Life After Life,' sparking decades of scientific inquiry. The University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual Studies, founded by Dr. Ian Stevenson, has documented over 2,500 cases of children reporting past-life memories.
Dr. Sam Parnia at NYU Langone Health led the landmark AWARE-II study, published in 2023, which found that 39% of cardiac arrest survivors had awareness during clinical death, with brain activity detected up to 60 minutes into CPR. Dr. Bruce Greyson at the University of Virginia developed the Greyson NDE Scale in 1983, still the gold standard for measuring NDE depth. An estimated 15 million Americans — roughly 1 in 20 adults — have reported a near-death experience.
The Medical Landscape of United States
The United States has been at the forefront of medical innovation since the 18th century. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston performed the first public surgery using ether anesthesia in 1846 — an event known as 'Ether Day' that changed surgery forever. The 'Ether Dome' where it occurred is still preserved.
Bellevue Hospital in New York City, established in 1736, is the oldest public hospital in the United States. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota — where Dr. Scott Kolbaba trained — was founded by the Mayo brothers in the 1880s and pioneered the concept of integrated, multi-specialty group practice that became the model for modern healthcare.
The first successful heart transplant in the U.S. was performed in 1968, and American institutions have led breakthroughs in everything from the polio vaccine (Jonas Salk, 1955) to the first artificial heart implant (1982). Today, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, is the world's largest biomedical research agency.
Miraculous Accounts and Divine Intervention in United States
The United States has documented numerous cases of unexplained medical recoveries. In Dr. Kolbaba's own book, a physician describes a patient declared brain-dead who suddenly recovered after family prayer. The Lourdes Medical Bureau has certified one American miracle cure. Cases of spontaneous remission from terminal cancer have been documented at institutions including MD Anderson Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering. The National Library of Medicine contains over 1,000 published case reports of 'spontaneous remission' across various cancers and autoimmune diseases — recoveries that defy current medical explanation.
The History of Grief, Loss & Finding Peace in Medicine
The opioid crisis has ravaged Northeast communities near St. Johnsbury, Vermont with a ferocity that exposed the limits of pharmaceutical medicine. But it also catalyzed a revolution in how physicians approach pain and addiction—with more compassion, more humility, and a recognition that healing often begins not with a prescription but with the question, 'What happened to you?' instead of 'What's wrong with you?'
The Northeast's tradition of public health near St. Johnsbury, Vermont reminds physicians that healing extends beyond the individual patient. Clean water, vaccination campaigns, lead abatement, tobacco cessation—these population-level interventions have saved more lives than any surgical procedure. The physician who advocates for a crosswalk near a school is practicing medicine as surely as the one who sets a broken bone.
Open Questions in Faith and Medicine
The interfaith dialogue that characterizes Northeast urban life near St. Johnsbury, Vermont extends into hospital ethics committees, where rabbis, imams, priests, and secular ethicists collaborate on cases that medicine alone cannot resolve. When a devout Muslim family requests that their father be kept on life support until a son can fly from overseas, the committee doesn't adjudicate between faith and medicine—it honors both.
The Northeast's secularization trend creates a paradox near St. Johnsbury, Vermont: even as church attendance declines, patients in crisis consistently reach for spiritual language to describe their experiences. 'I felt God's presence.' 'Something bigger than me was in the room.' 'I'm not religious, but I prayed.' Physicians trained only in the secular vocabulary of medicine find themselves linguistically unprepared for their patients' most important moments.
Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near St. Johnsbury, Vermont
The Northeast's long winters have always made its hospitals feel more isolated than geography would suggest. During nor'easters that blanket St. Johnsbury, Vermont in snow, emergency department staff report a spike in unexplained occurrences—call lights activating in empty rooms, elevators stopping at floors no one pressed, and the silhouette of a woman in Victorian mourning dress watching from the end of the hallway.
Abandoned asylums in the Northeast have become tourist attractions, but for medical professionals near St. Johnsbury, Vermont, they represent something more troubling. The cruelty documented in places like Willowbrook and Pennhurst didn't just traumatize patients—it seems to have scarred the physical spaces. Physicians who've toured these facilities describe a visceral nausea that goes beyond empathy, as if the buildings themselves are sick.
Understanding Comfort, Hope & Healing
Dr. Rita Charon's narrative medicine program at Columbia University, established in 2000 and now one of the most influential innovations in medical education, provides the theoretical and institutional framework for understanding how stories like those in "Physicians' Untold Stories" function therapeutically. Charon's foundational argument, articulated in her 2006 book "Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness" and in numerous peer-reviewed publications, is that narrative competence—the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by stories—is a clinical skill with direct implications for patient care. She identifies five features of narrative that are essential to its therapeutic function: temporality (stories unfold in time), singularity (each story is unique), causality/contingency (stories reveal connections between events), intersubjectivity (stories create shared understanding), and ethicality (stories engage moral imagination).
Dr. Kolbaba's accounts in "Physicians' Untold Stories" exhibit all five of Charon's features. They unfold in clinical time—the hours of a hospital stay, the moments of a dying patient's final awareness. Each account is singular, unrepeatable, and particular to the individuals involved. They imply causality while acknowledging mystery—events that happened without identifiable medical cause but that nonetheless felt connected to something meaningful. They create intersubjective understanding between the physician-narrator and the reader. And they engage moral imagination by inviting readers to consider what these events mean about the nature of healing, dying, and human existence. For readers in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, engaging with these narratively rich accounts is not passive entertainment but active therapeutic work—the kind of narrative engagement that Charon's research predicts will enhance empathy, foster meaning-making, and promote healing.
The concept of "moral beauty" in psychological research—the deeply moving emotional response to witnessing exceptional goodness, compassion, or virtue—provides a nuanced framework for understanding the therapeutic impact of "Physicians' Untold Stories." Jonathan Haidt's research on elevation, published in Cognition and Emotion and extended by Sara Algoe and Jonathan Haidt in a 2009 study in the Journal of Social Psychology, demonstrated that witnessing moral beauty produces a distinct emotional state characterized by warmth in the chest, a desire to become a better person, and increased motivation to help others. Elevation is associated with increased oxytocin, vagus nerve activation, and prosocial behavior.
Dr. Kolbaba's accounts in "Physicians' Untold Stories" evoke elevation through multiple channels: the moral beauty of physicians who remain attentive to mystery in a profession that dismisses it, the beauty of dying patients who experience peace and reunion, and the implicit moral beauty of a universe that, the accounts suggest, accompanies the dying with grace rather than abandoning them to oblivion. For grieving readers in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the experience of elevation—feeling moved by the moral beauty of these accounts—provides a positive emotional experience that is qualitatively different from the "cheering up" of distraction or entertainment. Elevation is a deep emotion that connects the individual to something larger and better than themselves, and its presence in the grieving process may be a significant facilitator of healing and growth.
For the diverse faith communities of St. Johnsbury, Vermont—churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and gathering places of every tradition—"Physicians' Untold Stories" offers common ground. Dr. Kolbaba's accounts do not favor any religious framework but present physician-witnessed events that resonate across traditions. A St. Johnsbury pastor, imam, rabbi, or secular humanist can each draw meaning from these stories on their own terms, using them as springboards for conversations about death, comfort, and the possibility of transcendence that their communities need but often avoid.
How This Book Can Help You
Vermont, where the Larner College of Medicine trains physicians for rural New England communities and the state's progressive approach to death includes both green burials and home funerals, offers a setting where the natural dying process is more visible and intimate than in any urban medical center. Dr. Kolbaba's Physicians' Untold Stories speaks to the experiences of doctors who are present for the full, unhurried arc of dying—the kind of presence that Vermont's rural physicians, serving small communities where doctor and patient are often neighbors, embody. This mirrors Dr. Kolbaba's own philosophy, developed through Mayo Clinic training and Northwestern Medicine practice, that physicians must be willing to witness and acknowledge what happens at the threshold of death.
The Northeast's medical conferences near St. Johnsbury, Vermont increasingly include sessions on topics this book addresses—end-of-life experiences, consciousness studies, the limits of materialism. Physicians who've read these accounts arrive at those sessions better prepared to engage with research that challenges the assumptions they were trained on.
About the Author
Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba, MD is an internist at Northwestern Medicine. Mayo Clinic trained, he spent three years interviewing 200+ physicians about their most extraordinary experiences.
Medical Fact
Gratitude practices — keeping a gratitude journal — have been associated with 10% better sleep quality in clinical trials.
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