The Length of the Hospital Stay after Myocardial Infarction

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Abstract
“Doctor, how much damage was there to my heart?” “When can I go home?” Any physician who has worked in a coronary care unit will recognize these two questions as the most common ones asked by patients recovering from myocardial infarction. Until the 1950s, patients were told that the infarcted heart was like a fractured bone, best treated by immobilization and a hospital stay of four to six weeks.1 A major advance, albeit extremely controversial when introduced, was to put a chair next to the hospital bed so that the patient could assume a comfortable seated posture.2 The duration of . . .