What Doctors in Lakewood, St. Johnsbury Have Seen That Science Can't Explain

The Institute of Noetic Sciences has spent decades investigating phenomena that exist at the boundaries of conventional scientific explanation—consciousness anomalies, distant perception, the effects of intention on physical systems. Much of this research has been conducted in laboratory settings, but "Physicians' Untold Stories" by Dr. Scott Kolbaba reveals that some of the most compelling evidence for these phenomena emerges from clinical environments. Hospitals in Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont and across the country serve as unintentional laboratories for the study of consciousness, producing observations that challenge the materialist framework of modern medicine. The physician accounts in this book describe events that align with IONS research findings: apparent nonlocal perception, unexplained synchronicities, and consciousness phenomena that persist even when the brain shows no measurable activity.

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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Dr. Kolbaba interviewed 200 courageous physicians who came forward with 26 of the most miraculous experiences of their careers.

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Medical Fact

In a British survey, 75% of palliative care nurses reported witnessing phenomena they considered to be "deathbed visits" from deceased individuals.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Lakewood, St. Johnsbury

Physicians practicing in Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont 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 Lakewood, St. Johnsbury 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 Lakewood, St. Johnsbury 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

The "awareness of dying" project at King's College London documented that dying patients' descriptions of supernatural visitors were consistent and detailed.

Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Lakewood, St. Johnsbury

Nurses near Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont are the backbone of Northeast healthcare, and their role in healing extends far beyond medication administration. They are translators—converting medical jargon into plain English, converting patient fears into clinical information, converting institutional coldness into human warmth. The best hospitals in the region know that nursing excellence is not a support function but the core of the healing mission.

Hospice care in the Northeast near Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont has evolved from a reluctant last resort to a sophisticated practice of comfort and dignity. The region's hospice nurses have learned something that curative medicine often misses: there is healing that goes beyond physical recovery. Helping a family say goodbye, facilitating a last conversation, easing a passage—these are acts of healing in their purest form.

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Medical Fact

Experienced oncologists report that some patients describe meeting a "guide" — a comforting figure who promises to be with them when the time comes.

Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Medical missionaries trained at Northeast institutions near Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont carry a dual vocation—healer and evangelist—that has shaped global health infrastructure. The hospitals these missionaries built in Africa, Asia, and Latin America now serve as the primary healthcare access for millions. Whether one admires or critiques the missionary impulse, its medical legacy is undeniable, and it began in the churches and medical schools of the Northeast.

Catholic medical ethics near Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont require a nuanced understanding of the principle of double effect—the idea that an action with both good and bad consequences can be morally permissible if the good is intended and the bad is merely foreseen. This principle governs decisions about pain management, palliative sedation, and end-of-life care in ways that directly affect patient outcomes.

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Did You Know?

Near-death experiences were first systematically studied by a physician — Dr. Raymond Moody, who coined the term in 1975.

Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Lighthouse keepers along the Northeast coast often doubled as first responders, and the keeper's quarters near Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont have a medical history that blends seamlessly with the supernatural. The keeper who set broken bones by candlelight and stitched wounds with sailmaker's thread is said to still climb the spiral stairs on stormy nights, lantern in hand, looking for ships that will never come.

The grand psychiatric institutions that once defined Northeast mental healthcare have mostly closed, but their influence reaches Lakewood, St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Former patients and staff from places like Danvers State Hospital describe encounters with entities that seemed to feed on suffering. Modern psychiatric nurses in the region carry these stories as cautionary tales about the thin line between clinical observation and the unexplainable.

Types of Phenomena in the Book

Distribution across 26 physician accounts

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Did You Know?

Reading books about hope and resilience has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression in randomized controlled trials.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

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Did You Know?

Physician wellness programs have grown by 300% in the past decade as hospitals recognize the impact of burnout.

Medical Heritage in Vermont

Vermont's medical history is anchored by the University of Vermont's Larner College of Medicine, established in 1822, making it the seventh-oldest medical school in the nation. The medical school's early faculty included Dr. John Pomeroy, who championed anatomical dissection at a time when it was controversial and illegal in many states. The University of Vermont Medical Center (formerly Fletcher Allen Health Care) in Burlington serves as the state's only academic medical center and tertiary referral hospital, treating patients from Vermont and northern New York. Vermont was a pioneer in establishing community health centers; the state's network of federally qualified health centers ensures access in isolated rural communities.

Vermont holds a dark chapter in American eugenics history. The Vermont Eugenics Survey, conducted from 1925 to 1936 under the direction of Henry Perkins at UVM, targeted the Abenaki people and French-Canadian families deemed "unfit" for forced sterilization. This program contributed to the near-erasure of Abenaki identity in the state. Brattleboro Retreat, established in 1834, was one of New England's first private psychiatric hospitals and initially embraced the progressive "moral treatment" philosophy of care. The state's commitment to mental health reform continued when Vermont became an early adopter of community-based mental health services, largely dismantling its institutional system.

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About the Book

The book was written over three years of evenings and weekends while Dr. Kolbaba continued to see patients full-time.

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.

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About the Book

Several of the book's stories involve physicians who were at the bedside of their own dying family members.

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.

Types of Phenomena in the Book

Distribution across 26 physician accounts

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Research Finding

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to physically change brain structure — increasing gray matter in areas associated with empathy.

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 Lakewood, 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.

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

A Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of cardiovascular events by approximately 30% compared to a low-fat diet.

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Discover the Stories Medicine Never Says Out Loud

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Physicians' Untold Stories by Dr. Scott Kolbaba

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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