
200+ Physicians Share What They Witnessed Near Edgewood, Chesapeake
In Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia, families who have accompanied a loved one through terminal illness often emerge from the experience with stories they cannot quite articulate—moments at the deathbed that seemed to belong to another order of reality. The patient who suddenly spoke lucidly after days of unconsciousness. The room that seemed to fill with an inexplicable warmth. The dying person who smiled at something invisible and called it beautiful. These experiences are profoundly comforting but also disorienting, and families may wonder whether what they witnessed was real or wishful thinking. "Physicians' Untold Stories" validates these experiences. Dr. Kolbaba's accounts, drawn from medical professionals trained in objective observation, confirm that deathbed phenomena are widely reported, consistently described, and experienced as genuine by the physicians who witness them. For Edgewood, Chesapeake's families, this validation is itself a form of healing.

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 →Physicians' Untold Stories — an Amazon bestseller with a 4.5-star rating from over 1,000 readers.
Medical Fact
Blood typing was discovered by Karl Landsteiner in 1901 — a breakthrough that made safe blood transfusions possible.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Edgewood, Chesapeake
Physicians practicing in Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia 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 Edgewood, Chesapeake 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 Edgewood, Chesapeake 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 first successful organ transplant from a deceased donor was a kidney, performed in 1962.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia
The tradition of anointing with oil near Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia—practiced by Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, and Catholic communities alike—serves a clinical function that transcends its theological meaning. The ritual touch of oil on the forehead signals to the patient that they are seen, valued, and surrounded by a community that cares. This signal reduces cortisol, improves sleep, and accelerates wound healing. Faith heals through biology, whether or not it also heals through the divine.
Military chaplains trained at Southeast seminaries near Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia carry a faith-medicine integration into combat zones where the distinction between spiritual and physical trauma dissolves entirely. The chaplain who holds a dying Marine's hand is practicing medicine. The surgeon who says a quiet prayer before opening a chest is practicing faith. In extremis, the categories merge—and it's the Southeast's religious culture that prepares both for that merger.
Medical Fact
Your body makes about 2 million red blood cells every second to replace those that die.
Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia
The old plantation hospitals that served enslaved populations near Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia are among the most haunted medical sites in America. The suffering that occurred in these spaces—forced medical experimentation, brutal 'treatments,' deliberate neglect—created hauntings of extraordinary intensity. Groundskeepers and historians who enter these restored buildings report physical symptoms: chest tightness, difficulty breathing, and an overwhelming sorrow that lifts the moment they step outside.
The kudzu that devours abandoned buildings across the Southeast has a spectral dimension near Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia. Old hospitals consumed by the vine seem to be slowly digested—absorbed into the landscape like a body returning to earth. Workers who clear kudzu from these structures report finding perfectly preserved interior rooms, complete with rusted gurneys, shattered bottles, and the lingering sense of occupation.
Did You Know?
Dr. Kolbaba's book has been cited in academic papers exploring the intersection of medicine and spirituality.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Edgewood, Chesapeake
The Southeast's historically Black medical schools near Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia—Meharry, Morehouse, Howard's clinical rotations—have produced physicians who bring unique perspectives to NDE research. The Black near-death experience, influenced by African diasporic spirituality, often includes elements absent from the standard Western NDE model: ancestral encounters, communal rather than individual judgment, and a return motivated by obligation to the living.
Research at Emory University's Center for Ethics near Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia has examined the ethical implications of NDE reports in clinical settings. If a patient reports receiving information during an NDE that proves medically accurate—the location of a blood clot, the existence of an undiagnosed condition—the physician faces a dilemma: investigate a claim with no empirical basis, or ignore potentially life-saving information because its source is 'impossible.'
Near-Death Experience Features
Percentage reporting each feature (van Lommel et al., 2001)
Did You Know?
The "doctor-patient relationship" has been shown in studies to be more predictive of patient outcomes than the specific treatment administered.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
Did You Know?
Hospitals consume more energy per square foot than nearly any other building type due to 24/7 operations and intensive equipment.
Medical Heritage in Virginia
Virginia's medical heritage is among the oldest in the Americas. The University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1825, was the first medical school in the United States to be part of a public university. The Medical College of Virginia (now VCU School of Medicine) in Richmond, established in 1838, performed the first successful heart transplant in Virginia in 1968 and has been a leader in organ transplantation and emergency medicine. The Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, founded in 1973, became world-famous when Drs. Howard and Georgeanna Jones opened the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine and produced America's first in-vitro fertilization baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, in 1981.
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center—while now in Bethesda, Maryland—has its roots in Virginia's military medical tradition. The Inova Health System in Northern Virginia is one of the largest healthcare providers in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Virginia's medical history also includes the darker legacy of the Western State Lunatic Asylum (now Western State Hospital) in Staunton, founded in 1828, which operated under the state's eugenics program that sterilized over 8,000 individuals between 1924 and 1979—the constitutionality of forced sterilization was upheld by the Supreme Court in Buck v. Bell (1927), a case originating from the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded in Lynchburg.
About the Book
The success of the book has led to increased academic interest in studying physicians' spiritual experiences as a field of inquiry.
Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Virginia
Virginia's supernatural folklore stretches back to the earliest English settlements. The Jamestown colony, established in 1607, is associated with accounts of spectral Native American warriors seen near the original fort site, and the unresolved fate of the earlier Roanoke Colony contributes to ghostly legends along the coast. The Exchange Hotel in Gordonsville served as a Civil War receiving hospital where over 70,000 soldiers were treated and over 700 died; staff and visitors report smelling blood and hearing agonized cries from the former surgical rooms.
Ferry Plantation House in Virginia Beach, built in 1830, is reportedly haunted by eleven ghosts, including Grace Sherwood, the "Witch of Pungo," who was convicted of witchcraft in 1706 and subjected to a ducking trial in the Lynnhaven River. The Bunny Man of Fairfax County is a modern urban legend involving a figure in a rabbit costume who allegedly attacks people with an axe near a railroad overpass—the legend has been traced to actual police reports from 1970 of a man in a rabbit suit throwing hatchets at people. The Martha Washington Hotel & Spa in Abingdon, a former girls' college, is haunted by a student who died in a horseback riding accident and is seen in the upper halls.
About the Book
The book covers ghost encounters, near-death experiences, miraculous recoveries, divine intervention, and deathbed visions.
Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Virginia
DeJarnette State Sanatorium (Staunton): Named after Dr. Joseph DeJarnette, a leading eugenicist who advocated for forced sterilization, this facility operated from 1932 to 1996 treating children and adolescents with psychiatric conditions. The abandoned buildings have become a destination for paranormal investigators who report children's voices, footsteps running through empty hallways, and shadow figures in the dormitory windows.
Western State Hospital (Staunton): Founded in 1828 as the Western State Lunatic Asylum, this is one of the oldest continuously operating psychiatric facilities in the United States. The original Kirkbride building and its underground tunnels are associated with numerous ghost reports, including the apparition of a woman in white seen in the windows and screams heard from abandoned wards. The facility's history of forced sterilizations under Virginia's eugenics law adds a particularly dark dimension to its haunted reputation.
Types of Phenomena in the Book
Distribution across 26 physician accounts
Research Finding
Omega-3 fatty acid supplementation has been associated with reduced depressive symptoms in multiple randomized controlled trials.
How This Book Can Help You
Virginia, where American medicine intersected with colonial history at institutions like the University of Virginia School of Medicine and where the nation's first IVF baby was born at the Jones Institute in Norfolk, represents the full spectrum of medicine from its earliest roots to its most advanced frontiers. The extraordinary experiences Dr. Kolbaba documents in Physicians' Untold Stories—phenomena at the boundary of life and death that challenge scientific understanding—would find a receptive audience among Virginia's physicians, who practice in a state where Civil War battlefield hospitals, colonial-era ghosts, and modern medical miracles coexist in the cultural consciousness. Dr. Kolbaba's Mayo Clinic training and Northwestern Medicine practice represent the same rigorous tradition of clinical observation that Jefferson envisioned for Virginia's physicians.
The Southeast's culture of hospitality near Edgewood, Chesapeake, Virginia extends to how readers receive this book: with generosity, with an open door, and with a glass of sweet tea. Southern readers don't interrogate these stories the way Northern readers might. They receive them as gifts—accounts shared in trust, meant to comfort rather than prove. This hospitable reception is itself a form of healing.

Research Finding
Regular massage therapy reduces anxiety by 37% and depression by 31% according to a meta-analysis of 37 studies.
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Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5 stars from 1018 readers.
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