[A heart attack: was the patient lucky or unlucky?]

Abstract

CIRCUMSTANCES WERE FAVOURABLE BUT OUTCOME ILL-FATED: The assessment of signs and symptoms in primary care is an important but difficult task for general practitioners (GPs) who have to decide whether symptoms require immediate action or rather a watchful waiting approach. However, the GP may sometimes just need a bit of luck. This case report describes how the doctor's luck (in taking the initiative to phone the patient shortly after discharge from a hospital where he had undergone surgery on two coronary vessels) and the luck of the patient (a subsequent cardiac arrest at the GP's office) results in an unsuccessful out-of-hospital resuscitation. Based on our analysis of the literature on the prevalence of cardiac arrests and the outcome of out-of-hospital resuscitation, we will leave it up to the readers to decide whether our patient had been lucky or unlucky.