Carol Coultraine pushed through the double doors marked Coronary Care Unit. She had driven straight from work to see her mother, who had suffered a mild heart attack three days before.

Mother’s care has been excellent here, Carol thought as she walked down the now-familiar corridor toward the room where mother was recovering. For the last two days Mother had received multiple tests. Yesterday the heart doctors had done a cardiac catheterization and decided that mother only needed a stent to open up the artery in her heart.