Listen free for 30 days
-
Life on the Ground Floor
- Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine
- Narrated by: Dr. James Maskalyk
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $34.91
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
You may also enjoy...
-
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly
- A Physician's First Year
- Written by: Matt McCarthy
- Narrated by: Matt McCarthy
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In medical school, Matt McCarthy dreamed of being a different kind of doctor - the sort of mythical, unflappable physician who could reach unreachable patients. But when a new admission to the critical care unit almost died his first night on call, he found himself scrambling. Visions of mastery quickly gave way to hopes of simply surviving hospital life, where confidence was hard to come by and no amount of med school training could dispel the terror of facing actual patients.
-
-
Not bad
- By SK on 2022-03-02
Written by: Matt McCarthy
-
Miracles & Mayhem in the ER
- Unbelievable True Stories from an Emergency Room Doctor
- Written by: Dr. Brent Rock Russell
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Miracles and Mayhem in the ER, Dr. Brent Russell shares true-life stories of his early days as an emergency room doctor. Contemplative and oftentimes hilarious, Dr. Russell leads the listener through the glass doors and down the narrow halls of the ER where desperate patients, young and old, come to get well. Occasionally heart wrenching and always fast-paced, Miracles and Mayhem in the ER will have listeners holding their breath one second and celebrating the next.
-
-
Not good, not bad either
- By ShoppingGirl on 2021-03-13
Written by: Dr. Brent Rock Russell
-
Cook County ICU
- 30 Years of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases
- Written by: Cory Franklin MD
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author Cory Franklin, MD, who headed the hospital's intensive care unit from the 1970s through the 1990s, shares his most unique and bizarre experiences, including the deadly Chicago heatwave of 1995, treating the first AIDS patients in the country before the disease was diagnosed, the nurse with rare Munchausen syndrome, the only surviving ricin victim, and the professor with Alzheimer's hiding the effects of the wrong medication.
-
-
Obnoxious...don't waste the credit!
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-02-21
Written by: Cory Franklin MD
-
Complications
- A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
- Written by: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This audio is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form, but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad.
Written by: Atul Gawande
-
Every Patient Tells a Story
- Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis
- Written by: Lisa Sanders
- Narrated by: Lisa Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of the monthly New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Lisa Sanders takes us bedside to witness the process of solving diagnostic dilemmas, providing a firsthand account of the expertise and intuition that lead a doctor to make the right diagnosis.
Written by: Lisa Sanders
-
Overdose
- Heartbreak and Hope in Canada's Opioid Crisis
- Written by: Benjamin Perrin
- Narrated by: John Cleland
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
North America is in the middle of a health emergency. Life expectancies are declining. Someone is dying every two hours in Canada from illicit drug overdose. Fentanyl has become a looming presence—an opioid more powerful, pervasive, and deadly than any previous street drug.
-
-
Great book.
- By Anonymous User on 2023-09-28
Written by: Benjamin Perrin
-
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly
- A Physician's First Year
- Written by: Matt McCarthy
- Narrated by: Matt McCarthy
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In medical school, Matt McCarthy dreamed of being a different kind of doctor - the sort of mythical, unflappable physician who could reach unreachable patients. But when a new admission to the critical care unit almost died his first night on call, he found himself scrambling. Visions of mastery quickly gave way to hopes of simply surviving hospital life, where confidence was hard to come by and no amount of med school training could dispel the terror of facing actual patients.
-
-
Not bad
- By SK on 2022-03-02
Written by: Matt McCarthy
-
Miracles & Mayhem in the ER
- Unbelievable True Stories from an Emergency Room Doctor
- Written by: Dr. Brent Rock Russell
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Miracles and Mayhem in the ER, Dr. Brent Russell shares true-life stories of his early days as an emergency room doctor. Contemplative and oftentimes hilarious, Dr. Russell leads the listener through the glass doors and down the narrow halls of the ER where desperate patients, young and old, come to get well. Occasionally heart wrenching and always fast-paced, Miracles and Mayhem in the ER will have listeners holding their breath one second and celebrating the next.
-
-
Not good, not bad either
- By ShoppingGirl on 2021-03-13
Written by: Dr. Brent Rock Russell
-
Cook County ICU
- 30 Years of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases
- Written by: Cory Franklin MD
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author Cory Franklin, MD, who headed the hospital's intensive care unit from the 1970s through the 1990s, shares his most unique and bizarre experiences, including the deadly Chicago heatwave of 1995, treating the first AIDS patients in the country before the disease was diagnosed, the nurse with rare Munchausen syndrome, the only surviving ricin victim, and the professor with Alzheimer's hiding the effects of the wrong medication.
-
-
Obnoxious...don't waste the credit!
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-02-21
Written by: Cory Franklin MD
-
Complications
- A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
- Written by: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This audio is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form, but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad.
Written by: Atul Gawande
-
Every Patient Tells a Story
- Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis
- Written by: Lisa Sanders
- Narrated by: Lisa Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of the monthly New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Lisa Sanders takes us bedside to witness the process of solving diagnostic dilemmas, providing a firsthand account of the expertise and intuition that lead a doctor to make the right diagnosis.
Written by: Lisa Sanders
-
Overdose
- Heartbreak and Hope in Canada's Opioid Crisis
- Written by: Benjamin Perrin
- Narrated by: John Cleland
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
North America is in the middle of a health emergency. Life expectancies are declining. Someone is dying every two hours in Canada from illicit drug overdose. Fentanyl has become a looming presence—an opioid more powerful, pervasive, and deadly than any previous street drug.
-
-
Great book.
- By Anonymous User on 2023-09-28
Written by: Benjamin Perrin
-
The Tenth Nerve
- A Brain Surgeon's Stories of the Patients Who Changed Him
- Written by: Dr. Chris Honey
- Narrated by: Dr. Chris Honey
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this absorbing narrative, Dr. Chris Honey, an accomplished neurosurgeon at Vancouver General Hospital, weaves his personal journey together with case studies that reflect the thrill of scientific discovery and the limitations of medicine. Operating on a terminally ill child amid an Ebola outbreak in Liberia, he questions his preconceptions about what it means to "win" against a disease. Reflecting on his own path into neurosurgery, he brings to life a relatively new, high stakes field of medicine—one that historically demanded emotional detachment and often attracts extreme personalities
-
-
Very detailed medical stories & history
- By MB on 2023-05-16
Written by: Dr. Chris Honey
-
We Are All Perfectly Fine
- A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing
- Written by: Jillian Horton
- Narrated by: Wendy Rich Stetson
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jillian Horton, a general internist, has no idea what to expect during her five-day retreat at Chapin Mill, a Zen centre in upstate New York. She just knows she desperately needs a break. At first she is deeply uncomfortable with the spartan accommodations, silent meals, and scheduled bonding sessions. But as the group struggles through awkward first encounters and guided meditations, something remarkable happens: World-class surgeons, psychiatrists, pediatricians and general practitioners open up and share stories about their secret guilt and grief.
-
-
Not just for Doctors!
- By Todd Hallman on 2022-02-16
Written by: Jillian Horton
-
E.R. Nurses
- True Stories from America's Greatest Unsung Heroes
- Written by: James Patterson, Matt Eversmann, Chris Mooney - contributor
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett, Will Collyer, Betsy Foldes Meiman, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Around the clock, across the country, these highly skilled and compassionate men and women sacrifice and struggle for us and our families. You have never heard their true stories. Not like this. From big-city and small-town hospitals. From behind the scenes. From the heart. This book will make you laugh, make you cry, make you understand.
Written by: James Patterson, and others
-
When the Air Hits Your Brain
- Tales from Neurosurgery
- Written by: Frank T Vertosick Jr. MD
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Jules on 2021-01-22
Written by: Frank T Vertosick Jr. MD
-
Diagnosis
- Solving the Most Baffling Medical Mysteries
- Written by: Lisa Sanders
- Narrated by: Lisa Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a Yale School of Medicine physician, the New York Times best-selling author of Every Patient Tells a Story, and an inspiration and adviser for the hit Fox TV drama, House, M.D., Lisa Sanders has seen it all. And yet, she is often confounded by the cases she describes in her column: unexpected collections of symptoms that she and other physicians struggle to diagnose. Dr. Sanders shows how making the right diagnosis requires expertise, painstaking procedure, and sometimes a little luck.
-
-
Diagnosis
- By Joanie B on 2023-08-04
Written by: Lisa Sanders
-
This Is Going to Hurt
- Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor
- Written by: Adam Kay
- Narrated by: Adam Kay
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to 97-hour weeks. Welcome to life and death decisions. Welcome to a constant tsunami of bodily fluids. Welcome to earning less than the hospital parking meter. Wave goodbye to your friends and relationships. Welcome to the life of a first-year doctor. Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights, and missed weekends, comedian and former medical resident Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the front lines of medicine.
-
-
Must read
- By Amazon Customer on 2022-11-08
Written by: Adam Kay
-
In Shock
- My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope
- Written by: Dr. Rana Awdish
- Narrated by: Dr. Rana Awdish, Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Shock is a riveting first-hand account from a young critical care physician, who in the passage of a moment is transfigured into a dying patient. This transposition, coincidentally timed at the end of her medical training, instantly lays bare the vast chasm between the conventional practice of medicine and the stark reality of the prostrate patient.
Written by: Dr. Rana Awdish
-
Weird
- The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World
- Written by: Olga Khazan
- Narrated by: Renata Friedman
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of us have at some point in our lives felt like an outsider, sometimes considering ourselves "too weird" to fit in. Growing up as a Russian immigrant in West Texas, Olga Khazan always felt there was something different about her. This feeling has permeated her life, and as she embarked on a science writing career, she realized there were psychological connections between this feeling of being an outsider and both her struggles and successes later in life.
-
-
Everybody is weird
- By Andrey on 2023-03-06
Written by: Olga Khazan
-
All That Remains
- A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes
- Written by: Sue Black
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dame Sue Black is an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist and human anatomist. She has lived her life eye to eye with the Grim Reaper, and she writes vividly about it in this book, which is part primer on the basics of identifying human remains, part frank memoir of a woman whose first paying job as a schoolgirl was to apprentice in a butcher shop, and part no-nonsense but deeply humane introduction to the reality of death in our lives. It is a treat for CSI junkies, murder mystery and thriller fans, and anyone seeking a clear-eyed guide to a subject that touches us all.
-
-
A shame it wasn't narrated by Black
- By Anonymous User on 2022-05-02
Written by: Sue Black
-
The Nurses
- A Year of Secrets, Drama, and Miracles with the Heroes of the Hospital
- Written by: Alexandra Robbins
- Narrated by: Alexandra Robbins
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Nurses, New York Times best-selling author and award-winning journalist Alexandra Robbins peers behind the staff-only door to write a lively, fast-paced story and a riveting work of investigative journalism. Robbins followed real-life nurses in four hospitals and interviewed hundreds of others in a captivating audiobook filled with joy and violence, miracles and heartbreak, dark humor and narrow victories, gripping drama and unsung heroism.
Written by: Alexandra Robbins
-
I Wasn't Strong Like This When I Started Out
- True Stories of Becoming a Nurse
- Written by: Lee Gutkind
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first "sticks", first births, and first deaths and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts and keeps them in the profession.
-
-
Loved this!
- By ERIN on 2023-02-16
Written by: Lee Gutkind
-
Plays Well with Others
- The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Relationships Is (Mostly) Wrong
- Written by: Eric Barker
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Plays Well With Others, Eric Barker dives into these questions, drawing on science to reveal the truth beyond the conventional wisdom about human relationships. Combining his compelling storytelling and humor, Barker explains what hostage negotiation techniques and marital arguments have in common, how an expert con-man lied his way into a twenty-year professional soccer career, and why those holding views diametrically opposed to our own actually have the potential to become our closest, most trusted friends.
-
-
Very relatable and relevant
- By Sally Arsenault on 2023-10-09
Written by: Eric Barker
Publisher's Summary
Canada Reads 2019 Longlist.
Winner of the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Do no harm is our most important rule, but we break it all the time trying to do good.
In this deeply personal book, winner of the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, humanitarian doctor and activist James Maskalyk reflects upon his extensive experience in emergency medicine. Splitting his time between a trauma centre in Toronto's inner city and the largest teaching hospital in Addis Ababa, he discovers that though the cultures, resources and medical challenges of the hospitals may differ, they are linked indelibly by the ground floor: the location of their emergency rooms. Here, on the ground floor, is where Maskalyk confronts his fears and doubts about medicine, and witnesses our mourning and laughter, tragedies and hopes, the frailty of being and the resilience of the human spirit.
Yet, he is swept most intimately into this story of "human aliveness" not as a physician, but as a grandson carrying for his grandfather, now in his 90s.
Masterfully written and artfully structured, Life on the Ground Floor is more than just an emergency doctor's memoir - it's a meditation on health and sickness, on when to hang on tight, and when to let go.
What the critics say
"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...but the strength of the book is that it captures the viscera, real and symbolic, of the ER - its sights, sounds, smells, pulse - without romanticizing the work.... Ultimately, that's what the book is about - making connections, across continents, culture and social classes, and clinging to the joyful moments that can be found amid the horror." (The Globe and Mail)
"A master of the medical memoir...Dr. James Maskalyk has a remarkable talent for description and detail.... [He] is entrancingly interesting...and his talent is offering serial nuggets of insight into things we rarely consider.... What makes Maskalyk so [listenable]? He is a noticer of small things, a person on whom nothing is lost." (Toronto Star)
"With his moving and penetrating account of his experiences as an emergency room doctor in hospitals from Toronto to Ethiopia, Maskalyk joined a centuries-old tradition of doctors who write well." (Maclean's)
"Austere as the Sudanese landscape, plangent as a ballad, this book has poetry in it along with pain." (The Washington Post)
What listeners say about Life on the Ground Floor
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kenneth Williams
- 2021-03-27
An incredible read 10/10
Amazing book for anyone interested in EM, global medicine, life, and death. would recommend to anyone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Liam Ryan
- 2021-02-13
Beautifully human!
A wonderful true account of the human experience. Loved every minute of it, read as if it were poetry.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jason
- 2023-04-18
good. worth a read if you like medicine and memoir
Read the heading. Audible requires 15 words so: 9 10 11 12 13 14 15.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2023-03-01
Wonderful
Wow! What a beautiful book. What an amazing life. I learned so much from listening to this book. ♥️
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- W.K.
- 2023-01-30
INCREDIBLE
I didn’t stop listening from the moment I hit the start button. James Maskalyk’s writing is like poetry. He tells it like it is , which can be both funny and heart wrenching. A must read for anyone who ever feels they were mistreated in the ER.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2023-01-17
An amazing read
I could listen to Dr James forever. What a beautiful book read with a soothing voice!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!