A nurse rehabilitator, supplementing routine physician/nursing coronary care unit (CCU) care, was found to be effective in increasing the return to work rate (p less than .05) and decreasing smoking (p less than .05) in a randomized trial of 102 patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI). These outcomes were thought to be due to the nurse rehabilitator's efforts in increasing patient knowledge of heart disease (p less than .01) and individual counseling.