To the Editor:
Further to the letter of Burillo-Putze et al concerning the article written by our group and recently published in the Revista Española de Cardiología,1 we should first of all like to thank them for their congratulations. Use of the term emergency room door is common, both in hospital slang and in the Spanish scientific literature. The emergency service in our hospital, for instance, has 3 definite areas for health care: the emergency room door, the observation ward and the short-stay medical unit. Likewise, other terms are also common, such as the "door to needle" or "door to balloon" interval (time between arrival of the patient at the emergency room and start of reperfusion therapy in acute myocardial infarction). We agree that the words emergency area, unit or service might be more appropriate, but it was never our intention to use the term emergency room door disparagingly. As the authors of the letter state, we too believe that medical work in the emergency services is as interesting, dignified and pleasing as any other. Rather than being a cause of friction, we firmly hope that our article will stimulate collaboration among physicians working in the emergency and cardiological services, which is vital for the development of chest pain units.