Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

LIFE ON THE GROUND FLOOR Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine. Review by Herman Silochan A philosophical treatise, a family story about a grandfather with virtues and values, our human globe that connects through pain, hope and loss, medicine is part economics, part politics, fashionable healing fads, pharmaceuticals call the shots, but in the end, a simple aspirin- a hundred year old medication - still goes a long way in a very, very complex world of futuristic monitoring bedside machines. In the emergency room, you do not vacillate, putting off decisions, you decide now, it creates a work flow among subordinates; to delay is to create chaos, you cannot have chaos in triage at admittance, there are a hundred sufferers waiting in line, no, they are depending on you, they have surrendered their lives for this diagnostic moment, they have transferred trust. In pain there is equality, the mighty and the lowly are in this together. Doctors and nurses know this; th...

A Prize Week For Authors In Canada By Stephen Weir  Published September 17, 2014 Huffington Post Story Yesterday it was the Giller. This morning it was the Griffin and the Weston Prizes and this weekend Word On The Street. This week is the busiest time of the year for authors, readers and the nation's book industry. On Tuesday it was the  Scotiabank Giller Prize  announcing their longlist of a dozen authors for the 2014 Canadian Fiction Prize. The Giller also dropped a bomb - they aare doubling the prize purse given to the winning author - first prize is now $100,000. Runner-ups will receive $10,000 each. The Giller is Canada's most prestigious fiction prize, and, with the new $10,000 award, it is now also one of the world's largest English language prizes. Usually the Giller announces here Toronto, but this year's shocker was made at McGill University's Moyse Hall Theatre  in Montreal. The award will be presented on November 10 and will be broad...