"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)