Home Care of Myocardial Infarction

Since I am not a graduate of Bristol University, I had no first-hand opportunity of appreciating the worth of Professor Bruce Perry as a teacher and diagnostician. Very soon after my appointment here 13 years ago, I realized these abilities and also his critical and self-critical approach to the so called advances in medicine, a good example being anti-coagulant treatment. The study which I am about to report is a comparison over two years of hospital and home treatment of myocardial infarction, and I here wish to acknowledge the co-operation of colleagues in general and hospital practice, many of them trained by Bruce Perry. Many patients and indeed doctors express a wish to be treated at home when afflicted by this disease, yet there are as yet no published figures on home care. Four years ago my general practitioner colleague John Wright conducted a retrospective survey of infarcts in practices in the South West and found that approximately half were treated at home; the mortality rate was similar to those admitted to hospital. By then the Intensive Care Unit