One day Bucks County District Attorney Diane E. Gibbons felt fine as she prepared for five murder trials. The next day, the 47-year-old prosecutor was in the hospital waiting for quadruple bypass surgery.

“I had no idea I had any trouble with my heart,” says Ms. Gibbons, who had seen her doctor about heartburn. After an abnormal EKG, Ms. Gibbons’s doctor sent her to Doylestown Hospital for a stress test. The results weren’t good.

The next morning, the DA underwent cardiac catheterization. The test showed that all four of Ms. Gibbons’s coronary (heart) arteries were partially blocked, and the blockages were too severe to be opened with angioplasty (opening a blocked artery with a balloon-tipped catheter). Ms. Gibbons needed coronary artery bypass surgery.

Having supported her parents through many medical procedures at other hospitals, Ms. Gibbons realized she was getting extraordinary care at Doylestown Hospital.

“It was such a pleasure to have people take the time to explain to me, in words I could understand, my condition and the required treatment,” she says. “From the surgeons and nurses to the people cleaning my room, everybody was amazingly thoughtful and professional. Doylestown Hospital is a fabulous hospital with a fabulous cardiac care unit.” Her surgery went well and Ms. Gibbons left the hospital three days later.

Like many women, the DA hadn’t known that one in three American women will die from heart disease. Even though she was a heavy smoker with a family history of heart disease, she didn’t realize that she was at risk. She attributed her constant fatigue to working too much and getting older.

The doctor told Ms. Gibbons she was tired because her heart wasn’t getting enough oxygenated blood to work right. She was shocked. “I expected to have tingling in my hand, pain in my left arm, or lightheadedness, everything I’d always heard about in people having heart trouble. But I learned that women don’t have the same symptoms of heart disease as men.” In fact, some women have no symptoms at all.

Ms. Gibbons quit smoking – which the doctors say was likely the main cause of her heart disease – the day she was hospitalized. While she has always exercised and eaten nutritious foods, she learned how to improve these healthy habits during her cardiac rehabilitation program at Doylestown Hospital. About three months after her surgery, in June 2006, Diane returned to work. When she’s not putting the bad guys away, she speaks to women about how to protect themselves, not only from criminals, but also from heart disease.

“I tell anybody who will listen: Don’t wait for symptoms. Get an annual physical. Eat well, don’t smoke and get some exercise.”