misdiagnosis of women with CP

Specialties Cardiac

Published

Are women being treated for heart disease thoroughly enough, or are men with heart disease still getting better treatment, and

the women's symptoms being dismissed as trivial, or anxiety, or muscle pain, or GI upset? What do you think or what do you see in your clinical settings??

We can continue to educate women at health clubs, clinics, shopping malls, adult day health centers, etc. How and where can we educate the low income/minority population? Is this being addressed in your area?

Are women being treated for heart disease thoroughly enough, or are men with heart disease still getting better treatment, and

the women's symptoms being dismissed as trivial, or anxiety, or muscle pain, or GI upset? What do you think or what do you see in your clinical settings??

The places I've been are pretty much doing the cardiac markers for women with a chief complaint of chest pain. However, I've seen more women who come in with abdominal complaints rule in for an MI.Fortunatey, most of the docs I work with are clued into it and usually order CPK and Trop I along with usual GI labs

The majority of people who present to our ED with c/o CP get an EKG and a cardiac lab panel which includes all cardiac markers. If the patient is not having an acute MI, most times they go to my ED sub-dept. which is Chest Pain Obs. Here we do a fast track r/o and stress echo or such. Most of our ED docs work close enough with our cardiologists and prefer to have them make the call. I would say our patient r/o population is 50/50 and FINALLY women and heart disease are taken seriously in our ED.

[This message has been edited by Mary Ellen (edited March 27, 2000).]

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