Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

A Woman Went to the ER With GI Symptoms — She Was Sent Home and Died of a Heart Attack #shorts

22 Jul 2026 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

2:42

In this YouTube short, Dr. Aaron Hartman recounts a case where a woman presented to the emergency department with gastrointestinal symptoms, was sent home with antacids, and later died of a heart attack. He uses the story to illustrate a systemic problem: women frequently experience heart attacks with non‑traditional symptoms, leading to high rates of misdiagnosis and worse outcomes. Hartman cites statistics—women are about 50% more likely than men to be misdiagnosed, women under 55 die twice as often after a heart attack, only 13% of women report chest pain as the primary symptom, and 95% have atypical symptoms in the month before the event. He attributes these gaps to historical research bias toward white male subjects, describing the phenomenon as a “medical feminist” issue and referencing the Yentl syndrome, which shows women receive less aggressive treatment (e.g., 50% less likely to get life‑saving cardiac catheterizations). Hartman advocates for personalized, precision care, urging women to self‑advocate, trust their intuition, and seek providers who collaborate with them. He ends with a call for viewers to share personal stories of missed heart disease, emphasizing that heart disease kills over 900,000 Americans annually—equivalent to 12 airplane crashes per minute—especially affecting women due to these diagnostic blind spots.

Chapters

She went to the emergency room with GI upset, got some antacids, went home and died of a heart attack. This might sound like a, a strange story, something you've never heard before, but we routinely in our healthcare system have missed in the past women with heart attack, women with angina, because women just act differently than men when it comes to their heart and their bodies in general. I was told actually in medical school that women and men present the same chest pain, pressure, elephant on your chest, but women actually present much different than men. Let's talk about some statistics. About 50%— women about 50% more likely than men to be misdiagnosed with a heart attack. And women under 55 are twice as likely to die after heart attack compared to men. That's a pretty crazy number. Only about 13% of women experience heart attacks having chest pain as their primary symptom. 95% of women— get this— 95% of women have nontraditional symptoms in the month before. So it makes sense why we routinely miss women. But the problem with their heart disease, the question is, why is that? I call this becoming a medical feminist, realizing that men and women are differently. Gaslighting with, with health, particularly with women, happens more commonly in women than men. They present differently. And the thing about is the data, the research for, you know, I was in medical school, 1996 to 2000, almost all the literature and data was on men, particularly white males, missing Asians, missing different ethnicities and cultures. The point is our healthcare system has these blind spots. Has these things we think to be true that just aren't, these blinders that block our ability to take care of the people in front of us. As a functional medicine doctor, I believe in personalized precision care, taking care of the person in front of me, not the million, 2 million people in these, these studies that you hear about. And women are one group that actually get overlooked commonly in this current healthcare system. There's nothing called the Yentl syndrome that actually found women were treated less aggressively than men with the identical heart symptoms. That is interesting. 50% less likely to receive life-saving cardiac catheterizations. What's the point? The point is, is understanding these statistics is important to realize you have to advocate for yourself. You have to be a self-advocate. If you think something's going on, trust yourself, trust your intuition, trust your gut, and find a provider that will work alongside of you. If you or a loved one has had a heart condition that was overlooked, that was missed, I'd love to hear about it. Share your story below. This happens a lot more common than you think, and heart disease is the number one killer in our country. Over 900,000 people a year die from this condition. It's about the equivalent of 12 airplane crashes every minute. It's insane how many people are dying in our country from this disease. And particularly it's affecting women more than men because it's being overlooked in them. So share your stories. Love to hear about it. Share below.