Dr. Scott Kolbaba
Appearances
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
When I tell these stories to my patients, they will frequently say, I've had that experience too, and I was afraid to tell anyone about it. That's been my experience, that people and doctors both are afraid to tell about these experiences because they're so unusual.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Thanks, Mike. Great to be here.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
I think it was a case of temporary insanity because this journey took me a long time. It took me about four years to complete. And it started with a story that one of my doctor friends told me, and it just blew me away. It led me to believe and to realize that doctors really have miracles that happen to them. They don't talk about them. Doctors are very scientific. They're very skeptical.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And when I started to learn about some of the miracles that happened to doctors lives, I was just I was I was floored. I couldn't believe it.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
One of the first things that I heard was Dr. Steve Heim, who's an orthopedic surgeon. And Steve told me a story about skiing in the mountains of Colorado. And he and his wife and his wife's sister decided to go skiing on this mountain that they'd never skied on before. And when they got to the top of the mountain, there was a blizzard that hit and the snow was coming down like crazy.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
The wind was blowing and it was very, very cold and they had to ski down. They had no other way to get down. So they started skiing. And Steve and the girls were skiing together and they came to a patch of trees and they had to go to the right or the left. And Steve went to the right and thought the girls were following him, a typical surgeon, I hate to say that.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
But Steve went to the right and as soon as he realized the girls weren't with him, he decided to ski through this grove of trees. And as he was skiing through the grove of trees, he suddenly felt this really strange feeling inside, like something ominous was happening and that he was being called upon to do something that had life and death proportions. And he had no idea what he was doing.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And all of a sudden, he decided to stop skiing. He stopped skiing right in the middle of this grove of trees. He knew the girls were probably waiting for him on the other side of the trees.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
but he stood there for a minute not knowing what to do and still having this very ominous uh feeling inside you ever had that feeling that something awful is going to happen or something really bizarre is happening to you uh-huh yeah So he took off his skis and stood there for a few seconds and then decided to walk up the mountain.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Now this was in the opposite direction from when the girls were waiting for him. So he's walking, climbing, walking, had no idea what he was doing. And all of a sudden he came to a big tree and you know how when there's a deep snow, there's a tree well, and the well goes down to the base of the tree. And he looked down and he knew exactly why he was there.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
He found the shape of a body underneath the tree covered with snow. Steve is a trauma surgeon. So he knew exactly what to do. He brushed off the snow, covered him with his jacket, put him in a reverse Trendelenburg position to get some blood to his head and started yelling for help. Help, help. One of the last skiers coming down the mountain heard his cry for help.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
came to him, said, what can I do? And he said, get the ski patrol as soon as possible. This guy is almost dead. He had a thready pulse. He just looked like he was gray and ashen. And so the other skier went down the mountain.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
About 15 minutes later, the ski patrol was on the scene with a snowmobile and a gurney, and they loaded the half-dead guy under the gurney and took him to the lodge where the ambulance was waiting and took him off to the hospital. And the next day he called to the hospital to find out what was happening to this fellow that had hit the tree. It was almost dead. And they said he'd recovered totally.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
He was doing well. He had a broken leg that Steve had splinted with some of his garments. And they said they did a great job splinting his broken leg with his garments and the tree branch. And he lived. And I said to Steve, you know, what do you think about this, Steve? And he said, you know, this was divine intervention.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
There's nothing, if you don't believe in something higher than us after an experience like this, I don't know what you believe in. And that got me to thinking,
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
i wonder if any other docs have had experiences like this so i i hung out in the doctor's lounge and i would ask you know doctors if they had any experiences that they couldn't explain scientifically and i was really really surprised a large number of doctors had these incredible experiences and they were really hesitant to tell me the stories because they they were afraid that people would criticize them for revealing these incredible stories that had happened to them and
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Most had stories. But the stories I wanted to include in the book, I had a couple of guiding principles that I wanted to use to put a story in the book. If it gave me goosebumps when the person, the doctor told me or it made me tear up, those are the stories that I included.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
This is a story about a doctor that actually delivered one of our kids. And his name is John Heitzler, was married to Joan. They had eight children. And the birth of their fifth child, Joan was having some difficulties. And let me go back a little bit and say that Joan was very, very close to her grandmother, Grandmother O'Hanlon.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
and the grandmother on Hanlon had come from Ireland and she was a model spiritual model for the family she would take care of people she was a midwife so Joan was delivering the baby and there were some problems after the after the delivery and Joan had a lot of a lot of pain and so they decided to give her a drug called Trilene which is a drug that puts people to sleep a deep sleep and then they would complete the afterbirth and so forth
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
So Joan was about ready to get this Trilene put on her through a mask on her face. And in walks Grandma Hanlon. And she stood at the head of the bed and shook her head that Joan should not put the Trilene on. So Joan pushed it away and didn't do that. And one of the things that happened then about a minute later is no one realized that Joan had eaten a large meal before she went into labor.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And about a minute after she would push the trial away, she vomited the entire meal. Had she been unconscious, she would have aspirated and could have died from that. And so Joan said that Grandma Hanlon, she made it to Grandma Hanlon's lab one last time, having transcended time and eternity because Grandma Hanlon had died 22 years before that.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Yeah, you know, most of these stories, when the doctors told them and experienced them, they said to me, these have no scientific explanation. You know, doctors are pretty skeptical. Doctors are pretty scientific. They want to have a scientific explanation for everything. But the stories that I included are ones that doctors just said, I have no scientific explanation for this.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
This is just something that happened and I just can't explain it.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Well, every time that they were in the office, they would ask Noemi how her spiritual life was. And then finally, Ron would say to her, I'm going to show you someday that there is life after this life and that there is a God. And Noemi said, that's fine. She accepted that. And they were kind enough and they weren't pushy so that it wasn't like someone was trying to push religion on her.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Noemi healed Adele and she went on her on her way and they had made contact for a long time and Noemi was getting a little bit burnt out from her practice and so she decided to take a three or four day vacation to Tucson but naturally many doctors myself included when you're ready to go on vacation some disaster happens the night before and she had to make it make rounds in the hospital really early in the morning before her flight
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And so she walked into the hospital and all of a sudden she felt this puff of air and felt like she was transformed into a different sphere. And she saw Ron, Ron Ashton, dressed all in white, smiling at her, and then he just disappeared. And she was a little bit surprised and taken aback. But then she went on her rounds and then went on her trip.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And on the way back, because she didn't look at her emails on the trip, she didn't want to be interrupted. On the way back at the airport, Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, she looked at her email. And there on her email was a note from the vice president of medical affairs. We regret to inform you that Ron Ashton died suddenly
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
the morning that Noemi was leaving for her trip, and that's when she saw him. And she realized then that he had indeed accomplished the major goal of his life, to show her that something did exist after death.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
I have. I have. I've had a couple. And, you know, when you think about, when I talk with my patients, I like to tell patients some of these stories, too, because they're just fun, interesting stories to tell. I've also discovered that many patients, and I suspect you also, Mike, I'd be interested to see if you've had a story, something like this, where you can't explain something that's happened.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
I do. If you want to go ahead and tell it, I'd love to hear it.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Sure, that gives you goosebumps, doesn't it?
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
When I tell these stories to my patients, they will frequently say, I've had that experience too, and I was afraid to tell anyone about it, but let me tell you. And that's been my experience, that people and doctors both are afraid to tell about these experiences because they're so unusual and so bizarre. So you said that you've had some of these experiences, so share one of those stories.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
One of the ones that probably got me started in this journey, one of my good friends, Rich Jorgensen, is a general surgeon. And Rich had a friend, Mike Lasso, who was a appellate judge in the state of Illinois. And they had a lot of fun together. Rich, one morning, was having a breakfast with a friend of his, and they were talking about dreams. And Rich was saying, I just don't dream.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
I don't have any dreams anymore. I used to as a kid, but don't have any dreams anymore. And the woman that he was talking to was kind of a
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
hippie type and she was saying well the the spirit the earth spirit uh if you have a dream it's the earth spirit talking to you and and you're supposed to if you dream about someone you're supposed to tell them what your dream was and he thought that was kind of interesting and then went about his way and a few months later he actually had a dream and he dreamt that mike lasso his good friend
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
died. And he saw them in a funeral home, and people were very sad. And this was such a moving dream that he decided to tell his friend, Mike Lasso, that he had a dream about him. And when he talked to Mike, Mike kind of laughed it off. He said, okay, Rich, you're going to get dumped. I was dead. That's a funny dream. So what do you want me to do? And he said, if you please just go get a physical.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Just humor me, get a physical. And after you get the physical, just let me know what they find. So he went to a good internist locally, got a physical. Everything was fine. He did the EKG, the lab work, everything. And so he told Rich, and Rich said, well, did he do anything else? And Mike said, well, no, he did the complete physical. Now I'm done. Yeah, satisfied.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And Rich just had that feeling inside that there was something really wrong that he had to do something else. So he said, well, why don't you just see my cardiologist? Because in my dream, I dreamt that she had a heart attack. So and died from that. So why don't you see my friend, the cardiologist? And Mike said, oh, come on, Rich, I did this already.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And Rich was so insistent that he decided to do that. So he went to see his cardiologist. Cardiologist did a stress test, failed it badly, went right into the hospital. They did an angiogram. He had a multivessel disease, including a left main coronary lesion, which gives a life expectancy of about 90 days. So he had emergency bypass surgery, saved his life.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
I think there is a takeaway, Mike. And I think the takeaway is that there's something else out there. In the book, I just collected a bunch of stories and I didn't wanna push religion of any kind, but I just wanted to get people to realize that there's something out there and it's higher than us.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
uh most of the docs and myself call it god you can call it whatever you want you can call it the earth spirit or whatever but there's something higher than us and that's that's the i think the general theme of what came out of all these stories that that there's something that loves us that love is a powerful force in the universe and that strange things happen to us and and there are little things that happen to us every day and
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
I wanted people to realize that to look at little coincidences in their lives, there are little things that happen to us probably almost every day that you sometimes write off as a coincidence, but realize that some of these things may be something that's a little bit different, that maybe there is something out there that is looking out for us and helping us on a daily basis.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
and remember those stories and write them down that that have happened to you like your story write that down so your kids and your grandkids can realize that uh you had a spiritual experience that that it really is worth paying attention to and look for those in your lives but skeptics would say but there are plenty maybe more stories of the people that died that didn't get saved that
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And, you know, I hear that a lot, and I search my consciousness to try to come up with an explanation for that. And there was a bishop from England that had a good explanation. And what you're asking is, why do bad things happen to good people? And why do some people get saved and why people don't? We don't know. Hopefully someday we will know, but I don't know.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
So tell me another story that a doctor told you. John Mendenhall is an orthopedic surgeon. He's a great orthopedic surgeon, very friendly. He got really, he was going through a divorce. He got really depressed and he was considering suicide. And the morning that he was thinking about all this, someone showed up in his office with a plaque.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And the plaque was a family tree with all of his relatives on the tree and he at the bottom. And he didn't know who dropped this off, but they finally realized that it was a fellow by the name of Dave Adams, anonymously dropped this plaque off. And he realized that he was at the bottom of this tree, and all the relatives were counting on him to do something in the world.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And so he realized that maybe his life did have a purpose, and he decided not to go ahead with the suicide.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
and so uh he went on with his life and and about a year or two later he was uh on rounds really really tired because he'd been up the night before and uh he was glad to have the weekend off and so he was he signed out to his his uh his partner left the hospital decided to get a pop at the doctor's lounge and when he's passing the doctor's lounge he forgot to do that
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And so then he decided to stop at the local gas station to get a pop. And when he was driving by the gas station, he was thinking about somebody else and forgot to do that. And then he got to his turnoff and expressway to go to his home. And for some reason, he was he was distracted and missed the turnoff. And then he decided, well, I know this hospital just down the street.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
where I have privileges, but I never operate because they don't have all the right equipment. They have a great doctor's lounge. I'll stop there and get a pop. So he pulled in and for some reason he parked in the front of the hospital versus the back. And as he walked in, someone came running up to him and said, Dr. Mendenhall, Dr. Mendenhall, thank you for coming. I'm glad you got my message.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
He never got any message at all. It was Kathy Staton, the daughter of Dave Adams, who had saved Dr. Mendenhall's life a couple of years before. And she said, my daughter has just fallen off a zip line. She fractured both forearms. Both bones and both forearms were fractured terribly. They were deformed. She wants to be a concert pianist.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
You're the only one I can think of that can really do the surgery that would help her and give her a chance of playing the piano again because the emergency room doctor said she'll never play the piano again.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
so he said well this is great but i i can't operate here because they don't have the right equipment and just as he was saying that the head nurse came up to him and said dr mendenhall thanks for coming i know that you've been hesitant to operate at our hospital because we don't have the right equipment but it's very interesting a couple weeks ago we'd had a meeting of the surgical surgical committee and we decided to order all the special equipment that you like excuse me and i picked it up this morning
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And here it is. So we went to see the Judy, the daughter had fractured her wrist and elbow or arms, and he decided to take her to surgery. He was exhausted, but he did the surgery. He finished it in record time. He said the bones almost fell into place. They were so effective. He finished the surgery.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Dave Adams, who was there with his daughter, came out and hugged him and thanked him for what he had done. And it took a long time for recovery. But Judy was able to finally play the piano. And Dr. Mendenhall went to the concert and he said she played like an angel.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Steve is a ER doc. And he was working one night when a guy came in with a diverticulitis. He had abdominal pain. It was a pretty easy kind of a thing. And he noticed when he was examining him that he had this tattoo on his arm. And the tattoo was a tattoo of a dime. And he thought that was curious. Why would he have a tattoo of a dime? So he was a little afraid to ask him.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
But finally, he got curious. They got the best of him. They said, why do you have that tattoo of the dime on your forearm? And the fellow said, well, my son was a coin collector. And he loved to collect dimes. And it seems like whenever we went to a special place, like we'd go to Wrigley Field, he would find a dime under the seat.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Or we'd go to a special dinner, and there would be a dime under his plate. And he started collecting these dimes. And every time there was a special event, he seemed to find a dime. And he said, my son was killed in an accident on the expressway a few years ago. And I wanted to put this on my arm to let him know that I remember him and that he was very special.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And then he said, the curious thing is that now I find dimes whenever I go to special places. And I think it's my son, Robbie, that is letting me know that he's OK. And so Steve thought that was kind of a nice, interesting story. But, you know, he's a little skeptical and didn't quite believe it very much.
Something You Should Know
How the Human Body Works & Stories Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
And he let the guy go with antibiotics and went back to his doctor's room to do the dictation, which only doctors can get into. And he pulled the chair out to sit down. And there on the floor, time.