Martin Dawes is a professor of family practice at the University of British Columbia. He started his clinical practice as a family physician in Oxford, UK and looked after 1800 patients for 17 years. He provided full office practice, obstetrics, home care, and in-hospital care. In 1992 following the completion of his PhD he developed and ran a Master’s in Evidence Based Health Care at the University of Oxford. He then ran the UK Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine there and in 2002 became Professor & Head of family practice at McGill University. He moved to UBC in 2010 to be Head of Family Practice until 2017. His research includes ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, implementation of pharmacogenomics in primary care, and lifestyle interventions to prevent diabetes, while for pleasure he enjoys fishing and messing about on boats.