Why would a doctor delay or postpone a left sided heart catheterization for 3 days?

case study - the myocardial infarction patient is a 41 year old male with blood pressure = 140/90, ST segment elevation, high creatine phosphokinase, and the rest of the laboratory results were normal. he experienced chest pains radiating to both shoulders with associated diaphoresis (sweating).

Let me guess...you're a lawyer or paralegal. Okay, I'll humor you... One thing that can delay a catheterizaion is a concommitant condition that would put the patient at risk of adverse reaction or death. Although you do not mention his troponin I level (which is more specific for cardiac muscle than CPK), this is clearly a myocardial infarction (STEMI), and the patient likely needs a cath. Some cardiologists are hesitant to cath a patient who has recently received thrombolytics such as tPA or TNK, but there are clinical trials of patients being cathed very soon after receiving thrombolytics. It also depends on whether the hospital where he was treated is able to perform an "interventional catheterization". If not, they would only be able to visualize the arteries. If they found a blockage, they would need to ship the patient to another hospital to perform the angioplasty or open heart surgery. Hope this helps.

Possibly to give the heart a chance to heal, and wait for the ST elevation to lower. If he had a cath right away, it could cause another MI, possibly worse than the one he already had.