Book excerpt: Twenty-first century medical schools, postgraduate bodies and other medical education organisations are responding to rapid advances in medicine, healthcare delivery, educational approaches and technology, and globalisation. Differences in geography, culture, history and resources demand diversity amongst educational systems. This important volume is designed to help medical educators working in today’s challenging circumstances by providing an overview of best practices and research in medical education. Routledge International Handbook of Medical Education provides a practical guide to and theoretical support for the major education challenges facing teachers, managers and policy makers around the world. Highlighting how resources can be used to provide effective and sustainable responses to the key issues facing medical educators, the handbook offers a truly international perspective of best practices with contributing editors and authors from around the globe. Routledge International Handbook of Medical Education recognises the need to maintain established best practices when appropriate and to respond adaptively to cultural differences and local conditions facing medical education. This topical book deals with the key challenges facing medical education by the different stakeholders including: - selection and admission of students to study medicine; - competences necessary for graduates to enable them to recognize and address emerging health issues and policies; - teaching and learning processes that are necessary to meet tomorrow's challenges; - approaches to assessment, including the integration of assessment and learning; - design and management of complex curricula that provide educational strategies to meet regional and global problems. A unique, diverse and illustrative resource of best practices in medical education, the handbook is stimulating reading for all educators of present and future health care professionals.