A little over 50 years ago, my father had a heart attack. He was driven to the hospital by friends after having “indigestion” for 2 days. He spent 2 weeks as an inpatient on an unmonitored rehabilitation ward and was treated principally with warfarin and digitalis. He was lucky and survived, but in that era, more than 20% of patients with an acute myocardial infarction died. Fastforward to today, when public education about early recognition of symptoms, emergency transport, monitored coronary care units, and early reperfusion by means of primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) have markedly reduced mortality from acute myocardial infarction to less than 5%
