The European Joint Congress of Clinical Anatomy was held on 26-29 June 2013 at the Egas Moniz Building of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (FMUL). The event was organized by the International Scientific and Organizing Committee chaired by Professor António Gonçalves Ferreira, Director of the Institute of Anatomy of FMUL.

This congress was jointly organized by the European Association of Clinical Anatomy (EACA – XII EACA Congress), the British Association of Clinical Anatomists (BACA) and by the Portuguese Anatomical Society (SAP/AAP). It also had the official participation of the Spanish Anatomical Society (SAE) and of the Brazilian Anatomy Society (SBA).
As the name implies, it was a scientific meeting about advances in anatomy applied to the multiple fields of clinical medicine, namely surgical specialties and imaging. The last day focused on the teaching of anatomy and was the first International Symposium on Teaching and Applied Clinical Anatomy. The European Joint Congress of Clinical Anatomy is the most important international scientific event in this field and is held in alternate years in prestigious European medical schools, bringing together some of the leading authorities in this field from all over the world and from Europe, America and Asia. This year the congress was held in Portugal for the first time and was attended by about three hundred delegates from many countries on all continents. It included 21 Plenary Lectures (3 Portuguese), 103 oral presentations and 152 posters. The last day was dedicated to teaching and, in addition to the open access presentations, there were three workshops about this topic: “Quality Assessment in Clinical Anatomy”, “Teaching Image Anatomy” and “Postgraduate Teaching of Anatomy”. The abstracts of the presentations will be published in the journals Clinical Anatomy (American) and Surgical and Radiologic Anatomy (European). At the General Assembly Professor A. Gonçalves Ferreira was elected the new European president for the 2013-15 biennium, and Fabrice Dupark, from Rouen, where the next congress will be held in 2015, was elected vice president.

The Opening Ceremony of the Congress took place at the Grand Auditorium of the Egas Moniz building and was chaired by the Rector of the UL. It ended with a performance of the Medical Tuna of Lisbon. During the congress and alongside it two major art events were held: throughout the days of the congress a photographic and painting exhibition by photographer Paulo Castanheira with artists of AFID (Association of Families of Disabled Individuals) was on display at the lobby of the Egas Moniz building; and on 28 June the exhibition “Anatomy Laboratory – Seeing and Thinking the Body” was opened at the Rector’s Office building. It was organized by Dr Valente Alves, Director of the FMUL museum and by Professor Hugo Ferrão, head of the Ciberart Unit of Faculty of Fine Arts of the UL (FBAUL) with the collaboration of FBAU. This exhibition will be open to the public until September 2013.

The congress and symposium were very successful and the interaction among participants was very fruitful and of high scientific level. Many had the opportunity to visit, in small groups, the refurbished premises of the Institute of Anatomy and to welcome the new conditions that we have to receive and prepare human bodies donated for education and research purposes.