Aims : to enthuse and remind a broad range of clinicians about the role of occupational exposures as a cause of respiratory disease; to increase the awareness of clinicians about the roles of environmental and occupational exposures as causes of lung disease; to scrutinise the occupational history of patients; to stress how important it is to talk with respiratory disease patients about their jobs; to appreciate both work-related and non-work-related risk factors in a given patient; to emphasise the importance of certain non-invasive diagnostic tools for occupational respiratory disorders and how these may eventually replace more invasive approaches.