By Anthony J. Brown
Thomson Reuters
NEW YORK — Women with chest pain are less likely than their male counterparts to receive aspirin and other recommended therapies by EMS personnel, according to study findings presented Friday at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s annual conference in New Orleans.
“Women with heart attacks have higher death rates than men, so these findings are very concerning, and it’s important for us to try to figure out why this is happening,” lead researcher Dr. Zachary Mesiel noted in a prepared statement.
“We expected to find no differences in treatments (by gender) because so much of ambulance care is subject to protocol,” he added in comments to Reuters Health. “In general, there is not as much discretion in how to treat patients in the prehospital arena compared to hospital or outpatient care.” However, the findings showed that there was, in fact, a gender difference.
Full Story: No racial disparities in out-of-hospital care were seen