by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Sometimes, people in my Heart Smart Women presentation audiences ask me if I’ve ever gone back to confront the Emergency physician who had misdiagnosed me in mid-heart attack with acid reflux and sent me home from the E.R. – despite my textbook symptoms of central chest pain, nausea, sweating and pain radiating down my left arm.  No, my heart sisters, I never did. But what did happen was, I think, even more satisfyingly juicy.   

Months after surviving that heart attack, and freshly fortified with Mayo Clinic cred after graduating from their annual WomenHeart Science & Leadership training for women with heart disease, I received an invitation to share what I’d just learned at Mayo to local Emergency Medicine staff.  I was offered one hour on the agenda of their annual Staff Education Day to talk about my own fateful misdiagnosis – and how, according to the Mayo Women’s Heart Clinic, that scenario might be avoided for future female heart patients like me: women who present with textbook cardiac symptoms but “normal” diagnostic tests.  Continue reading “How can we get female heart patients past ER gatekeepers?” →