
Miracles, Mysteries & Medicine in Coronado, Evanston
The therapeutic power of storytelling is ancient, but modern research has given it a new name: narrative medicine. Pioneered by Dr. Rita Charon at Columbia University, narrative medicine holds that stories—told, heard, and shared—can heal in ways that pharmacology cannot. In Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming, where families grapple with loss, chronic illness, and the existential questions that accompany both, "Physicians' Untold Stories" embodies this therapeutic tradition. Dr. Kolbaba's accounts are medical narratives that transcend the clinical, touching dimensions of human experience that science acknowledges but cannot fully explain. For readers in Coronado, Evanston who are processing grief, searching for meaning, or simply yearning for hope, these stories offer something that no prescription can provide: the possibility that the universe is more benevolent than suffering suggests.

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 →"Chicken Soup for Doctor's Souls." — Mary Ellen M.
Medical Fact
Medical students who engage with humanities and storytelling demonstrate better clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction.
Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Coronado, Evanston
Physicians practicing in Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming 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 Coronado, Evanston 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 Coronado, Evanston 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
Mindfulness meditation has been shown to physically change brain structure — increasing gray matter in areas associated with empathy.
Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming
West Coast Baha'i communities near Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming practice a faith that explicitly requires its adherents to seek medical care alongside spiritual healing—viewing the two as complementary expressions of divine will. This integration eliminates the faith-versus-medicine conflict that plagues other traditions and produces patients who are among the most compliant and engaged in their own care.
West Coast eco-spirituality near Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming—the belief that nature is sacred and that environmental health is spiritual health—has produced patients who view their illness through an ecological lens. A patient who attributes their cancer to environmental toxins and frames their recovery as both personal and planetary healing requires a physician who can engage with this framework without dismissing or diagnosing it.
Medical Fact
A Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of cardiovascular events by approximately 30% compared to a low-fat diet.
Ghost Stories and the Supernatural Near Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming
Hawaiian healing traditions, though Pacific rather than mainland, influence Western medicine near Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming through the large Hawaiian diaspora population. The ho'oponopono practice of reconciliation and forgiveness has been adapted into Western therapeutic settings, and the Hawaiian concept of mana—spiritual power that can heal or harm—appears in patient accounts from West Coast hospitals where Hawaiian patients describe encounters with ancestral healers.
San Francisco's 1906 earthquake destroyed hospitals alongside homes, and the medical ghosts of that catastrophe still manifest near Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming. Emergency physicians describe earthquake-night dreams—vivid, detailed experiences of treating casualties by gaslight in collapsed buildings—that feel less like dreams and more like memories borrowed from physicians who lived through the disaster. The earthquake's ghosts communicate through the sleeping minds of their professional descendants.
Did You Know?
Dr. Kolbaba found that military physicians returning from combat zones were particularly likely to report spiritually transformative experiences.
Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Coronado, Evanston
The West's tradition of scientific disruption near Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming—from Silicon Valley's technological innovations to Berkeley's paradigm-shifting physics—creates an intellectual culture where challenging established models is not just tolerated but celebrated. NDE research, which challenges the established model of consciousness as a brain product, finds a more receptive audience in the West than in regions where scientific orthodoxy is more rigidly enforced.
Psychedelic research at institutions near Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming—including UCSF, UCLA, and the Usona Institute—has reignited interest in the pharmacological parallels between NDEs and psychedelic experiences. The DMT molecule, produced endogenously by the pineal gland, produces effects nearly identical to cardiac-arrest NDEs when administered exogenously. This parallel suggests that the brain has built-in chemistry for producing transcendent experiences, regardless of their trigger.
Near-Death Experience Features
Percentage reporting each feature (van Lommel et al., 2001)
Did You Know?
Approximately 15% of hospital admissions involve adverse drug reactions, making medication safety a critical concern.
Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories
Did You Know?
The human body can distinguish between at least 5 types of taste — sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.
Medical Heritage in Wyoming
Wyoming, the least populated state in the nation, has faced unique challenges in healthcare delivery across its vast territory. The state has no medical school, relying instead on the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) regional medical education program through the University of Washington to train physicians committed to practicing in Wyoming. Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, the state's largest hospital, traces its roots to 1867 when Fort D.A. Russell's military hospital served the frontier. Wyoming Medical Center in Casper, established in 1911, serves as the primary referral center for central Wyoming and operates the state's only Level II trauma center.
Wyoming's medical history is closely tied to military medicine and the challenges of treating injuries in the ranching and energy industries. St. John's Medical Center in Jackson serves the Teton County community and handles injuries from the ski resorts and Grand Teton National Park. The state's critical access hospital system—including facilities like Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital in Thermopolis and Washakie Medical Center in Worland—keeps small-town healthcare alive in communities separated by hours of driving. The Wind River Indian Reservation, home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, is served by the Wind River Service Unit of the Indian Health Service, addressing health disparities in one of the most geographically isolated Native American communities in the country.
About the Book
Dr. Kolbaba is an internist at Northwestern Medicine in Wheaton, Illinois — a Mayo Clinic-trained physician.
Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Wyoming
Wyoming's supernatural folklore is shaped by its frontier history, vast open spaces, and Native American spiritual traditions. The Legend of the Little People is shared by both the Shoshone and Crow nations in Wyoming—small, fierce warrior spirits called Nimerigar who live in the Wind River Range and the Pryor Mountains. The discovery of a 14-inch mummy in a cave in the Pedro Mountains near Casper in 1932—the "Pedro Mountain Mummy"—fueled speculation about the Nimerigar's existence. The tiny mummified remains were examined by scientists who confirmed it was genuine but debated whether it was an infant or an adult with a rare condition.
The historic Irma Hotel in Cody, built in 1902 by Buffalo Bill Cody and named after his daughter, is reportedly haunted by a ghostly woman who appears in the second-floor rooms and by the spirit of Buffalo Bill himself, who has been seen near the hotel's famous cherry wood bar, a gift from Queen Victoria. In the ghost town of South Pass City, once a thriving gold mining community, visitors report hearing piano music and laughter from the empty saloons and seeing phantom miners walking the streets at dusk. Fort Laramie National Historic Site, a crucial supply point on the Oregon Trail, is one of the most documented haunted military installations in the West, with park rangers reporting the ghost of a cavalry officer's wife called the "Woman in Green" who appears near the officers' quarters.
About the Book
The physicians in the book represent the full spectrum of medical specialties — from surgery to psychiatry to pediatrics.
Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Wyoming
Fort D.A. Russell Hospital (Cheyenne): The military hospital at Fort D.A. Russell (later Fort Francis E. Warren, now F.E. Warren Air Force Base) served soldiers from the Indian Wars through World War II. The original hospital buildings, some of which still stand on the base, are associated with reports of soldiers in period uniforms walking the corridors at night and the sound of moaning in the former surgical ward. The fort's proximity to the Oregon Trail meant that civilian patients who died of cholera and other trail diseases were also treated within its walls.
Wyoming State Hospital (Evanston): The Wyoming State Hospital, originally called the Wyoming Insane Asylum, has operated in Evanston since 1887. The Richardsonian Romanesque original building is associated with reports of ghostly activity including the sounds of screaming from empty wards, the apparition of a man seen peering from an upper-floor window, and doors that lock and unlock on their own. The facility's 19th-century history includes patient deaths that remain poorly documented.
Types of Phenomena in the Book
Distribution across 26 physician accounts
Research Finding
Heart rate variability biofeedback training improves emotional regulation and reduces anxiety in healthcare professionals.
How This Book Can Help You
Wyoming, where the nearest hospital can be hours away and where physicians at isolated facilities like Hot Springs County Memorial serve as the sole medical provider for entire communities, represents the extreme edge of the rural medicine that Dr. Kolbaba explores in Physicians' Untold Stories. In a state where a doctor may be the only person present at a patient's death in a ranch house fifty miles from town, the extraordinary phenomena Dr. Kolbaba documents take on a particularly personal and undeniable quality. The WWAMI program that trains Wyoming's physicians through the University of Washington instills the same commitment to clinical rigor that Dr. Kolbaba received at Mayo Clinic, making the unexplained experiences these physicians encounter at Northwestern Medicine and across rural America all the more compelling.
For screenwriters and producers near Coronado, Evanston, Wyoming, this book is a treasure trove of stories that combine medical drama with supernatural mystery. But its greatest value isn't as source material—it's as a corrective to the sensationalized version of these experiences that Hollywood typically produces. The real accounts are more nuanced, more unsettling, and more ultimately hopeful than any screenplay.

Research Finding
Physicians who eat meals with colleagues at least 3 times per week report significantly lower burnout and higher job satisfaction.
Free Interactive Wellness Tools
Explore our physician-designed assessment tools — free, private, and educational.
Other Neighborhoods in Evanston
Nearby Cities
Explore Other Countries
Related Reading
Frequently Asked Questions

Discover the Stories Medicine Never Says Out Loud
Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5 stars from 1018 readers.
Order on Amazon →This page contains approximately 1,556 words of unique content.