The medical licensing assessment (MLA) content map: A list is not a syllabus, and a syllabus is not a curriculum

The GMC's Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA) marks a pivotal moment in UK medical education: the 2025 graduating cohort will be the first required to pass this national exam before entering clinical practice. The accompanying MLA 'Content Map' lists 217 clinical presentations and 315 conditions - across 25 areas of clinical practice that students need to know by the end of the programmes. While some medical educators may simply use this list to confirm whether timetabled teaching covers the material required, others may use the list a driver for curriculum change and transformation. In the case of the latter, meaningful opportunity now exists for collaborative redesign of undergraduate programmes, comprising everything from removing terms such as 'pre-clinical' and 'clinical' through to promoting more integrated approaches to delivering medical education and developing clinical reasoning using more authentic, applied workplace-based learning activities.