The countdown is on to this year’s Irish College of GPs Annual Conference, taking place on Saturday, 25 April. The day will provide GPs the opportunity to engage with important topics relevant to practicing today through a range of clinically focused presentations. The College are also thrilled to welcome two outstanding keynote speakers - Prof Ian Roberston and Dr Mike Ryan.
Below, we share an introduction to our keynote speakers.
Prof Ian Roberston
Ian Robertson is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin. Prof Robertson was Founding Director of the Institute of Neuroscience at TCD and of the Global Brain Health Institute – a fellowship programme run jointly with the University of California at San Francisco. His 600+ scientific papers on the neuropsychology of attention, emotion and neuroplasticity have been cited more than 41,000 times.
A trained Clinical Psychologist, he has written six best-selling books for the general reader, the most recent being How Confidence Works: the new science of self-belief. In 2024, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science and an honorary MD by Trinity College Dublin. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and of Academia Europaea.
Listen to Prof Ian Robertson’s keynote session on the topic ‘Running a Brain Marathon’ at 10:05 at the Annual Conference.
Dr Mike Ryan
Dr Mike Ryan has been at the forefront of managing preparedness for and response to health and humanitarian emergencies for thirty years.
He served most recently as Executive Director of the WHO Emergencies Programme and Deputy Director General of the World Health Organisation. Since joining the WHO in 1996, Dr Ryan has served with Emerging Diseases, Immunisation, Polio and Health Emergencies Programmes, deploying to countless countries, leading multinational and multidisciplinary teams supporting national responses to high-impact epidemics, natural/climate disasters and humanitarian crises. He is a founding member of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) and the Global Health Emergency Corps, which have aided the response to hundreds of disease outbreaks, natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies around the world.
Dr Ryan completed medical training at the University of Galway, a Master’s in Public Health at University College Dublin, and specialist training in public health and infectious disease control at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in London and the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET).
Dr Ryan will deliver his keynote session, “Preserving Health and Providing Health Care in a Fragile World- putting access and equity at the heart of national and international health”, at 15:50 at the Annual Conference.
We look forward to welcoming the attendees to the conference on the 25 of April and hope you enjoy the keynote presentations from Prof Robertson and Dr Mike Ryan.