1. A method for operating an implantable medical device, comprising: controlling the operation of the device with a primary controller; detecting faults with fault monitoring circuitry; upon detection of a fault by the fault monitoring circuitry, signaling the primary controller to halt operation and to activate a fail-safe subsystem for delivering therapy; after activation of the fail-safe subsystem, signaling the primary controller to validate its operation with a self-test and to deactivate the fail-safe subsystem if the primary controller is validated; and, employing a system-reset monitor to detect system resets caused by non-recoverable and persistent faults and to maintain a reset count that is incremented when an internal reset generated by the fault monitoring circuitry occurs, wherein the reset count is intermittently decremented.