G. Frank O. Tyers is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Surgery, University of British Columbia (UBC); Senior Consulting Staff at the Vancouver General and University Hospitals (former head of the Divisions of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery); member honorary staff at B.C. Children’s Hospital; and Adjunct Cardiac Sciences Faculty member, British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT).

Dr. Tyers is a native of Kaslo, BC, Canada, and worked during high school for the B.C. Forest Service, and the Cork Province Lead, Zinc and Silver Mine. While an undergraduate at UBC, he worked summers in construction, as a B.C. Forestry Service lookout, and for a contract forest surveyor. While a medical student, he worked on phosphate transport mechanisms for the Department of Pharmacology.

Dr. Tyers earned his medical degree from The University of British Columbia in 1962, during which time he received 8 awards of high distinction, including the Hamish Heney McIntosh Memorial Prize “awarded to the member of the graduating class who, in the opinion of the faculty, presents in every respect, the highest qualifications to practice his profession.” He completed Internship at the Vancouver General Hospital, 1962-63 followed by General Surgery and Thoracic Surgery residencies (1963-68) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (Chief Resident 67-68). Dr. Tyers continued his training as a Senior Cardiovascular Surgery resident at the Toronto General Hospital (1968-1969) and the Toronto Sick Children’s Hospital (1969-70).

Dr Tyers is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, The American College of Surgeons, and The American College of Cardiology; and is certified by The American Board of Surgery and The American Board of Thoracic Surgery. He has been licensed in the Province of British Columbia and the states of Pennsylvania and Texas.

Dr. Tyers is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Investigative Surgery, (cardiovascular surgery co-editor 1996-2001), and an editorial consultant for The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, PACE, The Canadian Journal of Surgery and The Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

He plays an important role in numerous national and international professional societies including: Member, Board of Directors, World Society of Arrhythmias (formerly International Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology Society); Independent Expert Elected Member of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, Cardiac Rhythm Management Device (CRMD) Committee (pacemakers, ICDs, leads & related components) since Nov-06; Expert representative from the Standards Council of Canada to the International Standards Organization/IEC TC 150/SC 6 Joint Working Group 1, Cardiac Pacemakers and Implantable Defibrillators Committee (since 2008), including co-chairman of the ISO working group on the Pacemaker Universal Magnet Mode response; Consultant for Greatbatch Medical Inc regarding design of new CRMD products.

Dr. Tyers' current regional and local commitments include part-time consulting and follow-up practice, primarily for patients with complex rhythm and CRMD problems; member BCIT Cardiac Sciences Program Advisory Committee; occasional undergraduate teaching through the UBC Center for Surgical Excellence. His other interests include research follow-up of patients with: co-radial leads, bi-atrial pacing systems for atrial resynchronization and atrial fibrillation suppression, transfemoral and other unusual lead implantation approaches, and extraction of CRMD leads.

Dr. Tyers' contributions to medicine are numerous and include the first demonstration of multisite and biventricular pacing as potential treatments for heart failure (1968 Am J Cardiol), the development and human implantation of the first hermetically sealed pacemakers in North America (Circulation 1975) and the development of real time telemetry systems for implantable cardiac devices (ASAIO abstracts 1977). In 1980 he was formally recognized for re-establishing cardioplegia as the myocardial protection method of choice for open-heart surgery, by the originator of the concept Dr. Dennis Melrose.

His dedication to teaching is evidenced by academic roles at UBC, and The University of Pennsylvania, followed by Assistant and Associate Professorships at Penn State University Hershey Medical Center, Professor and Head of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch 1977-1979, Professor and Head Divisions of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at UBC 1979–2000 plus both Chairman of the Resident Education Committee and Director of the Residency Training Program for the UBC Division of CVT Surgery 1979-2000; on the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada {RCPS(C)} Cardiovascular and Thoracic (CVT) Surgery Nucleus Committee for 9 years, on the RCPS Specialty Training Committee for 7 years, and on the RCPSC) CVT Surgery National Examination Board for 6 years.

Administrative commitments have included serving: on the UBC Faculty of Medicine Promotions Committee from 1997 through 2000, and on the Administrative Committee of the UBC Employee Benefit Plan 1996-2002; as a member of the British Columbia Ministry of Health Advisory Panel on Cardiac Care from 1989 through 2001; on the BC Cardiac Registry’s Steering and Surgical Research committees, plus their Budget Priorities, and Pacemaker and Defibrillator Planning subcommittees, all from1979-2000; on the Editorial Board of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery for 10 years; for the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) as Councilor for 5 years, member of the CCS executive committee for 3 years, chair of CCS Medical Devices Committee for 3 years, and as representative on the Federal Bureau of Medical Devices advisory panel on developing a Risk Based Classification System for Medical Device Approval in Canada for 2 years; on the executive Committee of the Canadian Working Group on Cardiac Pacing, on the editorial board of their newsletter, and from 1997-2002 as chair of their National Database Committee; as a panel member for the Rand Corporation Canadian-American Study of Indications and Appropriateness of Coronary Angiography and Revascularization; and as an advisor or consultant to: all the major CRMD manufacturers; the Phoenix Alliance; the SARNS Surgeons Advisory Board; the Thoratec Medical Advisory Board; the Spectranetics Physician Advisory Council; the University of Pennsylvania 1992 search committee for new Thoracic Surgery Division Head; and the Cardiac Care Network of Ontario, assisting their Consensus Panel with the development of long-range recommendations for the delivery of CRMD services for that province. From 1980 until 2002, directed the only nationally and internationally recognized pacemaker and defibrillator lead extraction program in Canada, and in 1996 introduced excimer laser lead extraction to Canada, 2 years before this technology was approved in the US and 5 years before a 2nd Canadian center was established in Ontario (Medical Post fall 2001). By the end of 2001, had removed over 800 leads from more than 400 patients from across Canada and the U.S. Acted as medical legal expert for BC Ministry of Attorney General Legal Services Branch and related parties on a number of Canadian and US Class Actions that have that been successfully certified for the potential recovery of billions of dollars to aid patients, Ministries of Health and hospitals recover some of the additional costs due to injuries etc following implantation of an inadequately tested, high risk, recalled heart valve; and arising from multiple recalled pacemaker, ICD and lead products.

The development of a province-wide quality appraisal and improvement program for Cardiac Surgery has been a particularly gratifying accomplishment. At Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) in the early 1980s Dr. Tyers began the annual presentation to medical, nursing and administrative staff, of 30-day operative mortality, length of stay, and complication data for each CV Surgical procedure and surgeon. VGH results were then compared in detail to those of the other Canadian hospital contributors to the Health Medical Records Institute administrative database. That early retrospective program evolved into the current province-wide, on-line entry of demographic, risk factor, operative and discharge data, including complications; calculation of gross and risk adjusted 30-day and in-hospital mortality, and tracking of late outcomes through links with Provincial Vital Statistics. Computerized data transfer to an International Registry originally provided for comparison with other leading North American and European centers and other databases. All of the province’s cardiovascular surgeons and trainees continue to be invited to an annual meeting where each hospital and its surgeons are subjected to detailed analysis. Individual identities are now coded, allowing each surgeon to evaluate their performance relative to all other surgeons in the region. After the meeting hospital Division Heads are given the codes for their members to enable remedial activities when required.

Dr. Tyers is a member of 27 national, and international academic, medical and surgical associations, including several with highly selective membership criteria such as The American Surgical Society, The American Association for Thoracic Surgery, The Society for Vascular Surgery, and The Society of University Surgeons. In 1991 received a ten-year Service Award from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and in 2003, was awarded Distinguished Fellow status by the Society for Vascular Surgery “for distinction in the art, science and teaching of vascular surgery”.

He was a Biographee in Who’s Who in America 1982 to 2002, and founding member of The North American Society for Pacing and Electrophysiology (NASPE). He was awarded an honorary membership in the Canadian Society of Cardiovascular Perfusionists, and The Association of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Asia where a frequently invited plenary speaker. Was a member of the International Scientific Committees for the XI and XII World Symposium on Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology; Secretary General for Canada’s bid to host the XIIIth World Symposium in 2007; a plenary speaker on Lead extraction at the 2005 meeting of the Japanese Heart Rhythm Society, Visiting professor and invited speaker on the US vs. the Canadian Health Care System (Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire) at Columbia University’s St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in 2009, frequent invited speaker for the Heart Rhythm Society annual meetings, most recently in 2010 and again for 2012.

Dr Tyers has authored 230 scientific papers, and has published 26 books and chapters, and over 190 abstracts. He holds 11 patents in the field of cardiac pacemakers, leads, telemetry and sensing systems, which have generated millions of dollars of income for the Pennsylvania State University, and for Research Corporation a non-profit agency that supports basic science grants. Two recent patents have issued related to protecting CRMDs from RFIDs and several patent applications are in process. He recently completed a magnet mode response standard for all bradycardia and resynchronization pacing pulse generators for the AAMI CRMD Committee.

He has presented at over 280 national and international meetings including invitations to speak on high-risk cardiac surgery, myocardial protection, pacing and electrophysiologic surgery, quality appraisal, the Canadian health care system, and extraction of chronic CRMD leads. Using income primarily generated through consulting and industry research project coordination, he established an endowment of over $50,000 for the Residency Training Program of the Division of CV Surgery at UBC. With his wife, endowed a UBC scholarship providing in perpetuity, an annual award of over $1,000 to assist science students from the remote East and West Kootenay regions of British Columbia attend university; and also helped fund a new study hall for UBC medical students.