Ambulance Use

[differenceblog]

Ron Winslow (2007), reporting in the Wall Street Journal, describes (but does not identify) a "Minnesota study" presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of SAEM (Society for Academic Emergency Medicine). The study suggests that rural men are less likely than rural women to call 911 at the sign of a heart attack. Urban men and women called 911 at

Comments

[catness]

Among the things that confuses the cardiac issue is the fact that one of the symptoms of a cardiac event is denial. "Of *course* I'm not having a heart attack." Seriously, it's in the list of things to look for if you're not sure what's happening to your patient.

I would be interested in more studies on what prompts the 911 call, not just gender, but that belongs in another journal. Whether or not you're alone, whether you can get to the hospital under your own power or in a timely manner, or if you happened to be raised as a drama queen are all contributing factors, I'm sure. :)

[differenceblog]

*grin*

Well, one serious issue I see with both of these studies is that they are focusing only on people who actually made it to the ER.

I would imagine there's a significant portion of people who just figure it's heartburn or something and go to bed.

The Brown study, by the way, does look at a lot of factors other than gender. Most of the studies actually look at socioeconomic and racial factors, rather than just male/female. It was just that the WSJ story, which doesn't actually name any researchers, was reported in 3 papers, so it caught my eye. [Citation needed] newspaper articles are one of my pet peeves.