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Our Mission
- To uphold equity by understanding, advocating, and responding to the needs of early career anatomists through open and regular opportunities for feedback, promoting representation, transparency in our work, and facilitating opportunities for global participation and collaboration.
- To promote community support through establishing online and in-person platforms to encourage networking and sharing of knowledge, experience, and resources related to anatomical sciences with an ethos of kindness.
- To deliver programmes of development by providing a plethora of activities aligned to the various learning needs across the anatomy sector to support development of anatomical sciences research, scholarship, and knowledge both within and out with the community.
ECA's Story
The Early Career Anatomists group was established as a Facebook group on the 30th March 2020, created by our Founder, Danya Stone.
This was developed in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic to connect early career anatomists, predominantly aimed initially at educators to share best practice and consider how they transition from in-person to online teaching.
While ECA began as the Early Career Anatomy Academics (ECAA), an ethos was established from the very beginning, with the group description reading: "A network for people early on in their anatomy teaching career to provide support for anything related to education in anatomy. A space for meeting people in similar roles, sharing of resources, career insights and potential collaboration on future research projects."
As ECA moved through to 2022, the inital inclusion of only 'anatomy teaching' in our ethos expanded to further fields within anatomy to include those in technical roles, students, supportive roles, enthusiasts, and on the list goes.
The Early Days
In the afternoon of the 22nd June 2020, the first ECA event was held - A discussion-based 'Sharing Best Practice' session was organised by Lydia Boynton and focused on 'How to Recreate the DR Online'.
This was followed by more Sharing Best Practice sessions:
- Remote Small Group Teaching (7th July 2020)
- Remote Lectures - Live vs. Pre-recorded (21st July 2020)
- Remotely Monitoring Engagement (7th August 2020)
Students also began getting involved, with a medical graduate hosting a session on 28th August 2020 about 'Clinical Information for the Anatomy Teacher'.
2020 was a significant year for everyone, with many anatomists having to adapt their teaching and skills. So, ECA rounded 2020 off with a final discussion-based session organised by Danya Stone on 17th December - 'A Unique Semester: What Have We Learned?'
ECA in 2021
In 2021, ECA started to get to know some of the group members a bit more in new feature titled simply 'Meet...'
Munesh Khamuani explained when the feature was launched on 7th January 2021: "Since it is hard to get all of us in one place, why not use this platform to get to know each other better and strengthen the early career anatomy community?
The purpose of this series is to encourage collaboration, provide direction and support to each other. It is also aimed at uplifting and empowering everyone on this group regardless of their background, current role and nationality."
The series covered nine anatomists from a variety of roles throughout 2021 and into early 2022.
While events may have taken a pause in 2021 as anatomists still grappled with the changes during the pandemic, the group remained active and a desire to finally meet in person was growing.
Face to Face
In early 2022, Annalise Richards planned to bring ECA (at the time known as Early Career Anatomy Academics - ECAA) together in person as Covid restrictions started to pivot back to pre-pandemic levels.
On the 18th March 2022, it was announced ECA would host it's first conference, hosted by the School of Anatomy at the University of Bristol on the 14th and 15th July 2022.
This conference would include abstracts submitted by ECA followers, a workshop on Comparative Anatomy, a social, and several invited speakers.
2022 saw the formation of the first organising committee of Early Career Anatomy Academics (ECAA), who organised the groups inaugural conference at the University of Bristol in July 2022, seeing over 90 delegates from 19 different higher education institutions across the UK, and internationally.
ECA is Formed
Following the conference success, an official committee was formed in September 2022, and in recognition of the diversity of our attendees, the committee voted to be known as the Early Career Anatomists henceforth to recognise that the many people engaging with the group were from other backgrounds, and to promote a more inclusive culture.
On 6th October 2022, Early Career Anatomy Academics officially became Early Career Anatomists with it's updated ethos "A network for people early on in their anatomy career to provide support for anything related to anatomy and education. A space for meeting people in similar roles, sharing of resources, career insights and potential collaboration on future research projects."
Webinar Series Begins
In October 2022, ECA announced the start of it's webinar series, comprising of a mixture of online seminars, workshops, and discussion. Aimed at bringing anatomists together online, with it encouraging those outside the UK anatomy community to engage with ECA.
The first webinar was on 17th November 2022, kicked off by Dr Lauren Clunie discussing 'PhDs in Anatomy Education'.
ECA in 2023
As the webinar series continued through 2023, ECA turned it's gaze to more collaboration with the Anatomical community to help support it's members and grow ECA.
This included ECA's first collaboration with the Anatomical Society, with a pre-conference workshop being hosted at the Nottingham AnatSoc in April 2023.
The workshop looked at 'What Might a Career in Anatomy Education Look Like?' was conducted jointly with the Anatomical Society Education Committee with the aim to support those who are interested in or pursuing a career in Anatomy Education.
Hosted by Dr Hannah Shaw (AnatSoc Education Officer) and Dr Jo Tomlinson, it provided the opportunity to learn about the careers of Anatomy Educators along with the opportunities and challenges they have faced.
Alongside group discussions, a panel comprised of anatomists from Early Career to Professor discussed their career path and their advice to others embarking on a similar journey.
ECA Logo
On the 1st March 2023 we announced our 2nd conference, which would now be hybrid and hosted by Danya Stone at Brighton and Sussex Medical School.
But that same day, we also announced a competition to create the ECA logo...
Running until the end of April, and announced on May 1st, the winner was Amy Dodds, a Teaching Fellow in Anatomy at Keele University. And that ECA logo is still used to this day, becoming the foundation of our entire brand (including our lovely green colour scheme).
When submitting the desgin, Amy said "The ECA group, in my opinion, is like a haven for the sharing of knowledge, pedagogy, and skills amongst like-minded anatomists. I wanted my logo design to reflect this, with the books representing the sharing of knowledge, the tools representing pedagogy and skills, and the skull representing the anatomists who make it all possible!"
ECA 23 - Brighton
With a new logo, the promotion for the conference was in full swing, with our first social media post using the logo being the opening of the abstract submissions.
ECA 23 would run on the 24th and 25th August 2023 in Brighton, with attendees getting their chance to attend workshops, present talks and posters, buy some anatomy-themed earrings, and even attend a dance social with The Dancing Anatomist (aka. Munesh Khamuani).
New President
As the conference came to a close, it was announced that Danya Stone would be stepping down as ECA President, having served as Founder and then President from March 2020 until August 2023.
Dr Jo Tomlinson was voted in by the ECA Committee over the summer, and officially took up the role of ECA President in August 2023.
ECA in 2024
ECA kicked off 2024 by continuing it's collaboration with the Anatomical Society, hosting a pre-conference workshop at the AnatSoc Winter Meeting in Liverpool.
'Outreach is Not Out of Reach' was organised and run by Alix Hudson, Betzy Manners, and Kris Phillips.
The aim was to encourage early career anatomists to think creatively and collaborate on projects designed to share knowledge of anatomy with the public. Discussing ideas on where to start, how to get people from other institutions on board and potential ways we can engage the public in anatomy.
ECA would later expand on these outreach principles, with an Outreach Webinar series starting in August 2024.
ECA Website & Membership
On January 19th 2024, the hybrid ECA 24 was announced. This time it would be hosted by Dr Munesh Khamuani at the University of Sunderland.
A few months passed as ECA worked away in the background, with the Communications Officer, Kris Phillips, designing and building up to the launch of this very website you're reading this on.
ECA finally had a home for everything it does, with ecanatomists.org launching on April 27th 2024.
But that wasn't all: ECA could now give it's community the opportunity to become members, with the membership launching the same day as the website.
These were massive steps for ECA, helping pave the way for future projects and expansion.
Summer 2024
As ECA membership grew, there were quite a few firsts across the following month including the first ECA newsletter and the first Journal Club.
In late July 2024, ECA again collaborated with the Anatomical Society and hosted a pre-conference workshop at the AnatSoc Summer Meeting in Edinburgh.
Annalise Richards and Victoria McCulloch lead the discussion on 'Elevate Your Pitch: Communicating Across Disciplines and Audiences'.
The group looked at how to craft and deliver compelling elevator pitches tailored to a variety of listeners. With the aim of improving attendees ability to communicate with people from diverse research areas, improve networking confidence, and refine science communication skills.
ECA 24 - Sunderland
ECA 24 will run on August 22nd and 23rd 2024 at the Univeristy of Sunderland.
But all of that is still to come...
The Future
As ECA looks to the future, some things are already in the pipeline with future conferences to look forward to, webinar series, collaborative workshops, membership expansions etc.
However, some ideas will take time and collective help from members - what do you want to see?
We want to improve links outside of education, integrating with technical and support roles, building ties with clinical colleagues, collabortaing with the wider anatomy community - all to find more ways to support our ECA community.
So, if you have an idea or something you feel we should be doing, let us know either on socials or via email.
After all, ECA is you.