Cardiac pacing and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator surveys : long-term Australian and international experience

This thesis represents work conducted over 40-years initially with Australian surveys on cardiac pacing and later ICDs. During the late 1990's, the author took on the responsibility of also organizing the world surveys, which are conducted each four years. The last two Australian and World (2005 and 2009) surveys were conducted and published under the banner of the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and forms the nucleus of the dissertation. The thesis has been prepared as an epidemiological work that can be readily understood by both medical and non-medical readers. All medical terminology has been carefully explained in simple English in Chapter 1. This was originally the Appendix, but the author felt that this represented a vital link in the development of the thesis and was promoted to the beginning. Although, probably too simple for the examiners, it nevertheless will be important to readers who are involved in taking on the arduous task of developing sophisticated pacemaker and ICD registries. Finally, each chapter has been written as a single entity with its own references. Consequently, there are areas of repetition in the text.