Life on the Ground Floor

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 Named a Best Book of the Year by Globe and Mail, National Post, CBC, Chatelaine 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.