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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

K.J. Mullins interviews Taylor Prize Finalist James Maskalyk By K.J. Mullins The first thing you notice about author James Maskalyk is how comforting his voice is. That voice is one that many people hear at during their hardest hours. When not writing Maskalyk is an Emergency Room doctor in Toronto and Black Lion Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he has helped to train the 25 emergency doctors that treat people in that country. James Maskalyk photo by George Socka Maskalyk's latest award-winning book Life on The Ground Floor was recently shortlisted for this year’s RBC Taylor Prize. The doctor takes readers through the A, B, Cs of emergency medicine in both a modern hospital and one where doctors have to deal with broken equipment while repairing hearts and limbs. During the brief moments of downtime, Maskalyk is with his beloved grandfather, a true man's man. Living in a trapper's cabin in Alberta the older man's last years are thoughtfully arc