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Failure to Diagnose and Properly Treat Heart Attacks May Cause Women to be More Likely to Die From Heart Attacks

According to the Women’s Heart Foundation, 42 percent of women who have heart attacks in the United States die within one year.* Only 24 percent of men who suffer heart attacks suffer the same fate. Could doctors and hospitals be to blame for the discrepancy?

Reasons Why Washington D.C. and Virginia Hospitals and Doctors May Be to Blame

Virginia and Washington D.C. doctors who are medically negligent in diagnosing or treating a heart attack may be liable for the injuries they cause. For example, doctors may be negligent if they fail to recognize the symptoms of women’s heart attacks. Heart attacks often present themselves differently in women than in men. The classic chest and arm pain often associated with heart attacks are less likely to be present when a woman suffers a heart attack. Instead, a woman is more likely to exhibit vague, flu like symptoms that are misdiagnosed as gastrointestinal issues or dismissed by doctors. Additionally, since women’s symptoms do not automatically lead doctors to think about heart attacks, women often wait longer when they arrive at the hospital for emergency care.

And even if a heart attack is properly diagnosed, women are less likely to receive therapies such as beta blockers and ACE inhibitors that are proven to improve a heart attack patient’s chances of survival.

Medical Researchers Share the Blame

Doctors and hospitals are not the only ones to blame for the high rate of female heart-attack fatalities. While the number of women who have died from heart attacks has outpaced the number of men who have died from heart attacks over the past twenty-five years, women continue to be underrepresented in heart-attack research.

Contact a Northern Virginia Medical Negligence Attorney if You’ve Been Hurt

If you’ve suffered a heart attack and you were misdiagnosed, or if you’ve lost a loved one due to a medical professional's failure to diagnose a heart attack, then you may be entitled to damages for your injuries. Please contact a Virginia and Washington D.C. medical malpractice lawyer for more information.

*Women’s Heart Foundation, Women and Heart Disease Facts

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