Abstract
The author presents the case of a 52-year-old woman who experienced symptoms of myocardial infarction (MI) over many months; neither her clinicians nor the patient-herself a nurse-recognized them. The author discusses the signs and symptoms of MI in women and highlights how failure to recognize them may lead to misdiagnosis and even death. This case illustrates how important it is that health care providers consider the possibility of heart disease in any woman whose symptoms could be cardiac in origin, even when the cause appears to be something else.