Aspirin during a heart attack?

[Marck Brown]

Hello, very new to the community. Just a question. If a person in the midst of a heart attack requests aspirin, is it common for that request to be ignored or adhered to. I just saw that question posed in a FB group and decided this you all would be best to answer that. Thanks, LOVING the forum.

 

[DrParasite]

Who is doing the ignoring? what is the age of the person? why are they requesting aspirin? how do you know they are having a heart attack? It's not always a simple black and white answer, because there can be many variables involved.

911 Dispatchers (as well as the pharmaceutical companies, but they have a vested interest in it) are telling people to take aspirin if they have a heart attack. There are also other reasons to take aspirin. If the patient wants to take ANY med (not just aspirin), should we let him? or rather, should a doctor let a patient's wishes guide his treatment path, or should he use his own clinical education and experience to treat the patient appropriately?

As a general rule, if you call for medical assistance, and a trained person shows up to help you, I would hope that you would let them determine treatments. I wouldn't say the patient's request would be ignored, but there could be some very good reasons why a person should not be given aspirin.

 

[mgr22]

Marck, in EMS in general, it's not common for patients' requests to be ignored, as in paying no attention to them. Whether or not caregivers meet patients' requests depends mostly on good medicine and logistics.

 

[EpiEMS]

requests aspirin

Depends on protocols. Odds are, it's part of ACS protocols, and has few contraindications.