Life on the Ground Floor Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine [Paperback]

Masterfully written and artfully structured, Life on the Ground Floor is a celebrated humanitarian doctor's unique perspective on sickness, health and what it is to be alive.


     Deeply personal in its scope, doctor and activist James Maskalyk--author of the highly acclaimed Six Months in Sudan--draws upon his experience treating patients in the world's emergency rooms. From Toronto to Addis Ababa, Cambodia to Bolivia, he discovers that although the cultures, resources and medical challenges of each hospital may differ, they are linked indelibly by the ground floor: the location of their emergency rooms. Here, on the ground floor, is where Dr. Maskalyk witnesses the story of human aliveness --our mourning and laughter, tragedies and hopes, the frailty of being and the resilience of the human spirit. And it's here too that he is swept into the story, confronting his fears and doubts and questioning what it is to be a doctor.National Bestseller
Winner of the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction
Shortlisted for the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize
Shortlisted for the 2018 Trillium Book Award
Shortlisted for the 2018 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction
Longlisted for the 2018 B.C. National Award for Canadian Nonfiction
Finalist for the 2017 Toronto Book Awards
Canada Reads 2019 Longlist
AGlobe and MailBest Book of 2017
ANational PostBest Book of 2017
A CBC Best Book of 2017
AChatelaineBest Book of 2017

The problem with memoirs, especially when they are written by Western doctors heading off to Africa for work, is they can be self-indulgent and messianic in tone. Dr. James Maskalyk deftly avoids that trap in his highly acclaimed first book,Six Months in Sudan . . . [and] he's done so again in his new memoir,Life on the Ground Floor. . . . [His] idealism and passion are obvious
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