James Maskalyk

Last updated
James Maskalyk
BornAlberta, Canada
OccupationMedical doctor, author, editor
LanguageEnglish
CitizenshipCanadian
Alma mater University of Alberta,
University of Calgary,
University of Toronto
Subject Emergency medicine
Notable works Six Months in Sudan
Life on the Ground Floor
Website
www.jamesmaskalyk.com OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

James Maskalyk is a Canadian emergency medicine physician, author, and meditation teacher. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

He works at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, and is the strategic director of Toronto-Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration in Emergency Medicine, which has frequently taken him to Ethiopia. [1] [4] He was the executive editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

His work for Médecins sans Frontières in Abyei was the focus of his first memoir Six Months in Sudan , [5] which was nominated for, among others, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. His second book, Life on the Ground Floor , won the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. [6] He was nominated one of the "50 most influential Torontonians" in 2023. [7]

Early life

Maskalyk was born in Alberta to parents who owned an lumber-planing business just outside of Edmonton. [2]

Education

In 1995, Maskalyk graduated with a degree in physiology from the University of Alberta where he studied gastrointestinal physiology and psychoneuroimmunology and won the Heritage Medical Research Award. [2]

Maskalyk graduated with a degree in medicine from the University of Calgary in 1999. [8] While studying, he did a medical elective in Santiago, studying cardiology and health system. [2] During his medical residency he worked in Cambodia with recently surrendered Khmer Rouge, providing primary care and helping the University of Toronto develop a medical elective where students and residents could study medicine in lower-resource settings. [2] Also, during his residency, he turned down an offer to study at Harvard University in order to do a writing fellowship at the Canadian Medical Association Journal, [2] where he also wrote the journal's first blog, in conjunction with Medecins Sans Frontieres, exploring why some diseases are neglected by the pharmaceutical industry. [9]

In 2004, Maskalyk qualified as an emergency specialist from the University of Toronto. [8]

Career

Maskalyk's 2014 paper on open medicine Modern medicine comes online 652-4626-2-PB.pdf
Maskalyk's 2014 paper on open medicine

Prior to becoming a physician, Maskalyk worked in a sawmill, as a courier, cleaner, security contractor, and disc-jockey. [2]

Maskalyk is an associate professor at University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine, [10] [8] and an emergency room physician and trauma team leader at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. [1] He also works as a wellness coordinator for St. Michael's Hospital's staff. [11] He has been praised for highlighting the issue of drug interactions with grapefruit consumption, [12] and encouraging awareness of global health at all levels of university education.

Maskalyk has worked for Médecins sans Frontières in Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya, [11] and in 2007, [13] Abyei, Sudan. [14] [15] He has also worked in Black Lion Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and is the strategic director of Toronto-Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration in Emergency Medicine, an institutional partnership designed to create the first system of emergency medicine in Addis Ababa. [4] He has also worked in Cambodia and Bolivia. [16] [17]

Maskalyk was a founding editor of then open-source, open-access, medical journal Open Medicine. [18] [19] He has spent has career looking at a systems approach to global equity in healthcare, and minimizing conflict of interest in researcher's contracts with industry. [20] Since 2022, he has been the executive editor in chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. [21]

His writing on global issues has appeared in The Washington Post , [22] and The Globe and Mail where he wrote a diary describing the early days of the COVID19 pandemic in Canada. [23] He has collaborated with Turtle Lodge to address inequities in healthcare experienced by Canada's indigenous people. [24]

Maskalyk hosts regular public events on Facebook, where he leads meditation sessions and conversations about a wide rage of topics including sex, alcohol, kindness, existentialism, exercise, economics, computer modelling, and death. [11]

Books

Six Months in Sudan

Originally written as the first ever official blog for Médecins Sans Frontières, Six Months in Sudan was adapted into the 2009 autobiographical memoir of Maskalyk's work in the village of Abyei in Sudan. [25] Treating illness, disease and trauma from vehicle collisions and violence, Maskalyk is overwhelmed by heat, exhaustion, and his own emotional struggles facing an overwhelming gap between healthcare needs and the capacity his colleagues can offer. [5]

Life on the Ground Floor

In 2017, Maskalyk released his second autobiographical memoir Life on the Ground Floor, in which he shares stories about his work in emergency departments in Canada, Ethiopia, Cambodia and Bolivia. [26] [27] [28] The book has 26 chapters, A through Z, each an unusual perspective of working in an emergency department. [16] Life on the Ground Floor won the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust for Nonfiction award, Canada's largest non-fiction award, in 2017 and has been translated into many languages. [6]

Doctor, Heal Thyself

Maskalyk has been working on his third book Doctor, Heal Thyself, writing about western, Traditional Chinese and Indigenous medicine. [1]

Personal life

He has a younger brother, Dan. [2]

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<i>Life on the Ground Floor</i> Doctors autobiography set in Toronto and Addis Ababa

Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine is an autobiographical book by Canadian doctor James Maskalyk about his work and reflections on working in emergency departments in St Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada, and Black Lion Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as well as work in Cambodia and Bolivia.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Doctor who helped people meditate through pandemic fears diagnosed with stage 4 cancer". CBC. 27 Oct 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Sibbald, Barbara (2002-10-29). "Emergency MD becomes CMAJ's fifth editorial fellow". CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal. 167 (9): 1045. ISSN   0820-3946. PMC   134194 .
  3. ↑ "The Current's new year party brings you laughter, live music, and some people you'll want to meet! by The Current". Podchaser. Retrieved 2021-12-15.
  4. 1 2 "Spruce Grove-born doctor, James Maskalyk, releases his second memoir, makes best-seller list". sprucegroveexaminer. Retrieved 2021-12-15.
  5. 1 2 SIX MONTHS IN SUDAN | Kirkus Reviews.
  6. 1 2 Patrick, Ryan B (20 Sep 2017). "Terese Marie Mailhot, Elizabeth Hay among finalists for $60K Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction". CBC.
  7. ↑ https://torontolife.com/deep-dives/the-50-most-influential-torontonians-2023/ [ bare URL ]
  8. 1 2 3 Barclay, James Andrew (2011-12-02). "At the heart of the problem". BMJ. 343: d6429. doi:10.1136/sbmj.d6429. ISSN   1756-1833. S2CID   164667420.
  9. ↑ Choi, Stephen (2005-04-12). "A call to bloggers (not a running group)". CMAJ. 172 (8): 1024–1025. doi:10.1503/cmaj.050315. ISSN   0820-3946. PMC   556041 . PMID   15824408.
  10. ↑ Salinas, Carlos C. (2021-03-03). "Covid-19, vaccines, and the environment". The Manila Times. Retrieved 2021-12-15.
  11. 1 2 3 White, Patrick (2020-04-08). "Doctor at Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital wins online following for COVID-19 updates, guided meditations". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2021-12-15.
  12. ↑ Spence, J. D. (15 October 2002). "Drug interactions with grapefruit". Canadian Medical Association Journal. 167 (8): 848. PMC   128389 . PMID   12406936.
  13. ↑ Kaplan, Jonathan (2009-04-15). "A place where dreams turn to dust". BMJ. 338: b1489. doi:10.1136/bmj.b1489. ISSN   0959-8138. S2CID   72478687.
  14. ↑ "Six Months in Sudan". CBC. 9 Jan 2019.
  15. ↑ Roedde, Gretchen (2009-04-28). "Making sense of the senseless". CMAJ. 180 (9): 955–956. doi:10.1503/cmaj.090593. ISSN   0820-3946. PMC   2670916 . S2CID   71217435.
  16. 1 2 "Opinion | A master of the medical memoir". The Toronto Star. 2017-11-21. ISSN   0319-0781 . Retrieved 2021-12-15.
  17. ↑ "The best Canadian nonfiction of 2017". CBC. 19 Dec 2017.
  18. ↑ "James Maskalyk | Writers' Trust of Canada". James Maskalyk | Writers' Trust of Canada. Retrieved 2021-12-15.
  19. ↑ "Canadian medical journal, Open Medicine, stops publishing". 4 Nov 2014.
  20. ↑ Rochon, Paula A; Sekeres, Melanie; Hoey, John; Lexchin, Joel; Ferris, Lorraine E; Moher, David; Wu, Wei; Kalkar, Sunila R; Van Laethem, Marleen; Gruneir, Andrea; Gold, Jennifer (2011-01-12). "Investigator experiences with financial conflicts of interest in clinical trials". Trials. 12: 9. doi: 10.1186/1745-6215-12-9 . ISSN   1745-6215. PMC   3031202 . PMID   21226951.
  21. ↑ "Ten great things that happened this week". Unity Health Toronto. 2022-10-06. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  22. ↑ Maskalyk, James (2011-08-04). "Paul Farmer's "Haiti: After the Earthquake"". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2022-03-14.
  23. ↑ Maskalyk, James (2020-04-24). "The doctor's diary: Coronavirus dispatches from an ER physician in Toronto". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2022-03-14.
  24. ↑ "Opinion: Indigenous communities are denied the most important medicine people can receive: Kindness". The Globe and Mail. 2021-02-19. Retrieved 2022-03-14.
  25. ↑ Woodward, Richard B. (2009-06-16). "Book Review: 'Six Months in Sudan: A Young Doctor in a War-Torn Village'". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-12-17.
  26. ↑ André Picard (2017-04-13). "James Maskalyk's Life on the Ground Floor, reviewed: Why emergency medicine is the great equalizer". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  27. ↑ Patrick, Ryan B (19 Oct 2017). "Why James Maskalyk wanted to explore the human side of emergency medicine". CBC.
  28. ↑ Pal, Nicole E. (2017-07-03). "Life on the ground floor: letters from the edge of emergency medicine". Medicine, Conflict and Survival. 33 (3): 232–234. doi:10.1080/10796126.2017.1384531. ISSN   1362-3699. PMID   28994316. S2CID   45108448.
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