200+ Physicians Share What They Witnessed Near Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury

Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury's medical professionals are trained to trust the evidence before them — the lab results, the imaging studies, the pathology reports. So what happens when that evidence contradicts everything a physician knows to be possible? Dr. Scott Kolbaba's "Physicians' Untold Stories" answers this question with remarkable candor, presenting accounts of recoveries so extraordinary that the physicians involved were forced to reconsider their understanding of disease and healing. These are not secondhand stories or urban legends. They are firsthand accounts from doctors who watched their patients recover from conditions that every textbook, every study, and every colleague said were irreversible. In Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, this book has become a quiet revolution — proof that honest medicine requires an openness to the unexplained.

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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Physicians' Untold Stories — an Amazon bestseller with a 4.5-star rating from over 1,000 readers.

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Medical Fact

The femur (thighbone) is the longest and strongest bone in the human body.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury

Physicians practicing in Rock Creek, 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 Rock Creek, 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 Rock Creek, 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 first CT scan was performed on a patient in 1971 at Atkinson Morley Hospital in London.

Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury

The Northeast's aging population means that physicians in Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury, Vermont are managing more end-of-life cases than ever before. Hospice nurses in the region report that patients who've had prior NDEs approach death with markedly less anxiety—a clinical observation that aligns with Greyson's published data showing reduced death anxiety in NDE experiencers, sometimes persisting for decades after the event.

The Northeast's concentration of Level I trauma centers means that Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury, Vermont physicians see the highest-acuity patients—and the most dramatic recoveries. When a patient who was clinically dead for twenty minutes wakes up and describes a coherent, structured experience during that period, the trauma team faces a choice: chart it as 'patient reports unusual experience during arrest' or acknowledge that their understanding of death is incomplete.

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Medical Fact

Insulin was first used to treat a diabetic patient in 1922 by Frederick Banting and Charles Best in Toronto.

Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury

Rural medicine in the Northeast doesn't get the attention that metropolitan medical centers receive, but physicians in small towns near Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury, Vermont practice a form of healing that no academic center can replicate. They know their patients by name, by family, by the thirty years of medical history they carry in their heads. This longitudinal intimacy is itself therapeutic—being truly known is a form of care.

Medical students near Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury, Vermont learn the science of medicine in lecture halls, but they learn the art of healing in patient rooms. The first time a student holds a dying patient's hand, something shifts. The vast apparatus of medical education—the biochemistry, the pharmacology, the anatomy—suddenly has a purpose that transcends examinations. It exists to serve the person in the bed.

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Did You Know?

Ancient Babylonian physicians could be executed for surgical errors — medical malpractice law has deep roots.

Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Portuguese and Brazilian communities near Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury, Vermont bring a Catholic tradition rich with folk healing—promessas (healing vows), ex-votos (offering replicas of healed body parts), and devotion to healing saints like São Expedito. These practices, far from being obstacles to care, often increase treatment compliance: a patient who has made a promessa to recover feels divinely obligated to follow the doctor's orders.

Northeast medical schools near Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury, Vermont increasingly include coursework on spiritual care, recognizing that a physician who cannot discuss a patient's faith is incompletely trained. This isn't about endorsing any particular belief system—it's about acknowledging that for many patients, their relationship with God is as clinically relevant as their relationship with their medications.

Reader Ratings Distribution

Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings

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Did You Know?

Dr. Kolbaba has said that writing the book taught him more about being a physician than his entire medical education.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

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Did You Know?

Approximately 60% of Americans report having had at least one experience they would describe as "spiritual" or "mystical."

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

Dr. Kolbaba is a board-certified internist who has maintained an active clinical practice throughout his writing career.

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

Dr. Kolbaba holds faculty appointments and has been involved in medical education throughout his career.

Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Vermont

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.

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.

Types of Phenomena in the Book

Distribution across 26 physician accounts

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Research Finding

Art therapy in healthcare settings has been associated with reductions in depression, anxiety, and pain across multiple studies.

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.

Book clubs and reading groups near Rock Creek, St. Johnsbury, Vermont will find this book uniquely suited to the Northeast's love of debate. These aren't stories that demand belief—they're stories that demand conversation. Is consciousness reducible to brain function? Can a dying brain perceive? What do physicians owe patients who report experiences that science can't yet explain?

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

Yoga has been shown to reduce inflammatory markers (IL-6, CRP) by 15-20% in regular practitioners.

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Discover the Stories Medicine Never Says Out Loud

Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD4.5 stars from 1018 readers.

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Physicians' Untold Stories by Dr. Scott Kolbaba

Amazon Bestseller

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