I was in my first year of residency for orthopaedic and trauma surgery when one of my abstracts about ACL surgery got accepted as a podium presentation at the ESSKA congress in Athens 2004. This was my first international congress and I was more than proud to speak in front of such a highly experienced, mostly male, audience of orthopaedic specialists. I became a regular and active participant of ESSKA congresses in the following years through to the present day. I attended educational courses and had the opportunity to teach at several of ESSKA’s knee courses. I visited many leaders of ESSKA during my participation in the European Arthroscopy Fellowship. I have been a member of two of ESSKA’s committees to date and was selected for the ESSKA–SLARD fellowship. Despite this active and varied involvement, through all these years something was missing: visibility and a network for female orthopaedic surgeons within ESSKA.
