Frank Pantridge's Legacy: A Symposium

held a two day international conference from 10-12 th June 2009, in Frank Pantridge's honour. It began with a review of the Department's cardiovascular disease research programme which was initiated when Frank Pantridge established Mobile Coronary Care in Belfast in 1966. It was Frank Pantridge's development of the portable defibrillator which had made Mobile Coronary Care feasible. Soon afterwards, a year-long study of all fatal heart attacks in Belfast was mounted by the Department. The study showed that heart attack patients admitted to hospital represented " …the survivors of a storm which has already taken its main toll. " 1. The study was repeated in the early 1980s, and simultaneously, the Omagh / Ballymena Study was conducted which compared heart attack survival in two areas of the Province, only one of which was provided with Mobile Coronary Care 2. This Department's interest in community studies of cardiovascular disease made it a natural centre for the WHO MONICA Project which began in Belfast in 1983 3 .