**1. Introduction**

Modern graduate medical education (GME) continues to evolve and transform, with increasing emphasis on evidence-based approaches, general competencies, objective assessment, and focus on value-and-quality considerations [1–3]. GME represents the gradual transition between what is traditionally understood as "undergraduate education" (including medical school) and one's full professional engagement within a medical or surgical specialty [4, 5]. The concept of "readiness for practice" has emerged as an important driver of how graduate medical training is adapting to each trainee's individual needs and accomplishments, with milestone-based re-calibrations throughout the learning continuum [6, 7]. This results in the creation of a highly competent medical workforce ready to meet the expectations and sophistication of a busy, modern-day clinical practice [5, 8]. As part of this transition, contemporary GME's character has evolved beyond a wellestablished repertoire of didactic techniques, increasingly embracing immersive simulation, multimedia platforms, and various emerging real-time feedback technologies [9–11].

Consistent with the current book series title, *Contemporary Topics in Graduate Medical Education*, our editorial team and chapter authors are focused on sharing their thoughts and wisdom regarding the optimal approaches to preparing future generations of physicians (**Figure 1**). Parallel to the current GME paradigm shift, we clearly observe that the nature of physicians' work continues to change and evolve [12, 13]. The themes underlying this transformation will create unique opportunities and challenges for tomorrow's physicians, requiring an in-depth reengineering of the established construct of "readiness for (independent) practice" [14, 15]. Within this overarching context, modern GME experts must navigate the careful balance between "the art and science" of medicine.

**Figure 1.** *A word cloud depicting an amalgam of key concepts discussed in this chapter and throughout this book.*
