GPs are clotbusters

Family doctors have a key role to play in giving "clot-buster" drugs to heart attack patients, the British Cardiac Society's annual meeting in Glasgow heard this week. A survey by John Rawles of Aberdeen University's medicine assessment research unit found that the chances of receiving clot-idssolving drugs within 90 minutes dropped significantly if the patients were treated only in hospital. But almost all patients treated by GPs were given the drugs within 45 minutes.