Teenage Heartache

摘要

"I'm having chest pain." It's a declaration guaranteed to grab a physician's attention. And it certainly got mine one day as my healthy-looking new patient pointed to the middle of his sternum and added, "It's an ache right here." Walk into any emergency room, your fist clutched to your chest, and say, "I'm having chest pain," and most of the following will happen: You will be fast-tracked to an exam room and connected to a cardiac monitor. Oxygen tubing will be slipped under your nose. An intravenous line delivering saline will be inserted into your forearm. It will be assumed that you are having cardiac pain until proven otherwise. Blood will be drawn and sent stat to the lab. And you will probably be asked to chew an aspirin as a technician performs an electrocardiogram, or EKG, a record of your heart's electrical activity. It's a scenario that unfolds hundreds of times a day all over the U.S.