---
title: Learning To Prevent Heart Attacks In Women
url: "https://arizonacollege.edu/blog/preventing-heart-attacks-in-women/"
type: post
date_published: 2022-02-10
date_modified: 2026-04-30
schema:
  @type: Article
language: en-US
word_count: 601
reading_time: 4 min
canonical: "https://arizonacollege.edu/blog/preventing-heart-attacks-in-women/"
featured_image: "https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/MichelleMartin.jpg"
categories:
  - "Health & Wellness"
---

# Learning To Prevent Heart Attacks In Women

![Leader from nursing college near me](https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/MichelleMartin.jpg)

## 󠀁**Can you spot a heart attack in a woman?**󠁿

February is
[American Heart Month](https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/01/31/a-proclamation-on-american-heart-month-2022/)
, a time for us to focus on our cardiovascular health. Why is there a whole
month devoted to our hearts?  Heart disease is the number one killer among both
men and women. But for years, heart attack prevention and research has largely
focused on men. The surprising truth is women are less likely than men to
survive a heart attack.

Ask most people what some of the signs and symptoms of a heart attack are, and
the response could be chest pain radiating down the left arm, like an elephant
sitting on your chest, or shortness of breath. Although chest pain is the most
common presenting symptom, women can experience heart attacks quite differently.
They may experience more subtle chest pain or none. They may present with
symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, vomiting, sweating, heartburn, and neck,
back or jaw pain.

In some cases, medical professionals may be missing the signs too.  A
[2018 research study of 500,000 plus cases](https://www.pnas.org/content/115/34/8569)
found that if a heart attack patient was a woman, seen by a male physician in
the ER, her risk of death increased about 12 percent. The study raised questions
about whether women were being heard or understood, leading to more misdiagnosis
or slower diagnosis of heart attacks. Statistics like these emphasize the
importance of triage nurses.

![Heart Attack Warning Signs Infographic](https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Heart-Attack-Graphic-1.jpg)

There are all sorts of reasons cardiac emergencies can be missed in women.
Emergency rooms, by nature, are chaotic with time constraints and multiple
interruptions.  Add in COVID protocols and gender bias, and it is easy to see
why women sometimes don’t get treatment as quickly as they need it.

## Triage Nurses Play A Vital Role In Identifying Heart Attacks

As an educator at a nursing college and an emergency room nurse, I have
witnessed triage nurses play a vital role in identifying heart attacks. Often a
nurse is the first person that sees a patient in the emergency room. Women
themselves can contribute to a slow diagnosis by downplaying their symptoms.  A
well-trained nurse can ask questions, listen, and weigh a women’s symptoms
against their history and risk factors to make the best decision for the
situation. These decisions may provide cues for physicians that lead to faster
treatment for both male and female patients.

At [Arizona College of Nursing](https://www.arizonacollege.edu/), we teach
triage protocol and use evidence-based quality standards for management in
conjunction with the
[American Heart Association Standards](https://www.heart.org/).  We teach the
protocol standards of obtaining an EKG within 10 minutes, when to administer
aspirin and what lab work to collect for assessment.  But the most important
thing we teach in our nursing school is to be an advocate for patients. It’s by
putting patient care first and discarding preconceived gender biases that we can
save more lives.

_Michelle L. Martin is a faculty member at [Arizona College of Nursing in Tempe](https://www.arizonacollege.edu/tempe-nursing-school/). She has been an RN in various clinical settings, including Medical/Surgical, Hi-Tech Home Care, ICU x10 years, and ER nurse for 19 years.  Her non-clinical nursing experiences include three years as a critical care clinical instructor and guest lecturer, an assistant on a geriatric research project, and a three-week medical mission in rural Uganda._

---

_Information in this blog post is accurate as of February 10, 2022._

**Categories:** Health & Wellness