Recently retired from clinical practice, Dermot Ryan was a GP with a long standing interest in Respiratory disease and allergy as encountered in primary care. He has been chairman of the Primary Care Respiratory Society and established the chair of Primary Care Respiratory medicine at the University of Aberdeen. He was instrumental in setting up npj Primary Care Respiratory Medicine, the second highest impact Primary Care medical journal. He was one of the Clinical leads for respiratory disease for the East Midland Strategic Health Authority He is currently an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and Chairman of the Primary Care Interest Group of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.