A new journal for challenges, trends and transformations in academic medicine today.

The Medical faculty in Mostar has been in existence since 1997. Establishing and developing a new school of medicine is a long, laborious and expensive process. The tripartite mission of medical school education, health care, and research, represents the three basic pillars of academic medicine. According to the Royal College of Physicians „academic medicine is the discovery and development of basic principles, effective policies, and best practices that advance research and education in the medical disciplines, ultimately to improve the health and well-being of individuals and populations“. Academic medicine might be also defined as „the capacity of the system of health and health care to think, study, research, discover, evaluate, innovate, teach, learn, and improve“ (Awasthi et al. 2005). The main roles of academic medicine include: 1. rational and creative application of scientific achievements into medical practice; 2. provision of the highest level of education and research, and improvement of health on a global level; 3. educational and ethical guard of medical research; 4. promotion of scientific and systematic thinking and information proccessing strategies in medicine as an art and practice of the learning organisation; 5. fighting for global health despite all political and economic problems.