Meet Dr. Michael Hession

On New Year’s Eve in 2013, Dr. Michael Hession awoke struggling to breathe. His wife, Colleen, a nurse herself, knew he was in trouble. She called 911 and an ambulance transported them to South Shore Hospital, where Michael has worked as a cardiologist since 1985. He never thought he would be a patient in their Emergency Department, but it was there he began his journey from acute respiratory distress, to rehabilitation, to his new mission to share a life-affirming message with other clinicians and patients.

After being intubated and put on life support, Michael was transferred to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he spent 11 days sedated in the ICU. When he awoke, he couldn’t move his arms or legs, or even swallow. The energetic, prolific physician with a love for travelling the world was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a virus-triggered autoimmune disorder that caused paralysis from the neck down.

The couple knew he would have the best chance of recovery at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. “There are 640 muscles in the human body, and they had basically all atrophied,” says Michael. “I spent six weeks at Spaulding being rebuilt.” There, he devoted himself to relearning how to swallow, move his limbs, walk, and get back to activities of daily living under the attention of his care team, led by attending physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor.

“My care team worked together to rebuild me,” Michael says. “They took the time to get to know my wife and me, and to understand how to motivate me.” Several weeks into his rehabilitation, Michael hit a mental wall. With creativity and persistence, his physical therapist, Melissa, brought him and Colleen to Spaulding’s inpatient therapy gym, turned on music, and told them that today physical therapy would be ballroom dancing (which his wife loved). “It was joyous—and it worked to get me ‘unstuck’ and to reengage in my rehabilitation,” says Michael. “That’s the spirit and philosophy embedded in the Spaulding approach.”

From knowing what’s important to our patients and families, to providing personalized care plans, to leveraging state-of-the-art facilities and cutting-edge research, Spaulding’s approach to rehabilitation aims to help our patients get back to the lives and activities that matter to them. Donor support is critical; it enables Spaulding to invest in the most effective training and programs to get the best outcomes for our patients.

After his intensive inpatient rehabilitation, Michael continued his recovery work with Spaulding outpatient services in Braintree and on Cape Cod, where he and Colleen now live. He gradually returned to his work and his passions. “When you go through a critical illness like this, you don’t go back to where you were. You find a new normal,” he says. “The people who are able to rebuild their lives are those who look to the future and find meaning, purpose, and happiness again.”

That “new normal” had its share of twists and turns, setbacks and silver linings. Multiple health issues—and one global pandemic—in the ensuing years brought Michael back to Spaulding for continued rehabilitation. His combined health experiences ultimately inspired him to write the book Physician Heal Thyself: Nearly Dead and the Journey Back to Health, which was published in 2024. He now spends his time sharing the message of his book with others in the health care profession.

“These near-death experiences have made me a better person and a better physician,” he says. “I wrote this book to help show people that it’s possible to recover, even if the life you return to isn’t the same. I also wanted to highlight the art of medicine—that empathy and compassion are our superpowers as healthcare providers.” Michael’s Spaulding care team wielded those superpowers at every step in his recovery, a life-changing gift he’s now committed to sharing.