Week: 569.4 Guest: Dr. Raymond Bahr, cardiologist, St. Agnes Hospital, Baltimore, MD Topic: Early Heart Attack Care Program Producer/Host: Steve Girard

NEMA: Have those chest pains checked out....coming up...

SPOT: For 15 years, the National Emergency Medicine Association has worked against stroke, heart disease and trauma. Join the effort, call 800-332-6362.

NEMA: Half of the 500 thousand people who die of heart attack this year could still be around to celebrate New Year's Day '98...if they listen to what their body is trying to say...

BAHR: I think a heart attack is more than a disease of the coronary vessel. I think it's a disease of human behavior.

NEMA: Dr. Raymond Bahr of St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, the developer of the Chest Pain Emergency Room movement and proponent of EHAC...or Early Heart Attack Care...

BAHR: EHAC talks about heart attacks having beginnings, it occurs over a course of time...hours to days to weeks. And if you intervene, you could actually prevent the crash.

NEMA: Dr. Bahr says the message is simple: If you have chest discomfort that comes and goes, that seems to increase with activity...then go to the hospital and get checked out right away. You may prevent what could be heart attack from an occluded artery...

BAHR: We have a web site, www.EHAC.org, and it's a very popular site for educational as well as how to put together a chest pain center in a community hospital.

NEMA: I'm Steve Girard at The Heart of the Matter.