MD Acumen · Observatory · one school, every stage of a medical career
MD Acumen 🔭 Observatory

How we teach, how we keep it current, and who signs what

The method behind every page, the Living Curriculum, the signer register, the conflicts statement and the sponsor register, and the place to verify any certificate.

Reviewed and kept current

Last editorial review: 11 October 2026 · Next scheduled refresh: 11 April 2027.

The Acumen Standard The Living Curriculum Verification and the AI position Conflicts, independence and sponsorship Who signs Verify a certificate
The Living Curriculum

The Living Curriculum

Guidance is watched for change; when a cornerstone guideline moves, the affected teaching is reviewed, re-signed and re-dated by a named clinician. Nothing is republished unsigned. Clinician-identified updates and systematic checks of the guideline bodies and journals in our source registry feed one queue; each change is traced to every lesson, question, case, triangle rating and reference that depends on it. The Currency Update log lists each signed change with its date.

The currency badges are read from the learning platform.

Research and publications

The outcomes study and what we publish.

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Verification and the AI position

Verification, Human Oversight, and our AI Position

Every clinical statement is signed by a named GMC-registered clinician, citing the date and the exact guideline version relied on. Nothing reaches a learner unsigned.

MD Acumen Ltd is a company registered in the United Kingdom and is led by a UK-registered clinician, so UK law governs how we operate. We use European Union law, the EU AI Act in particular, as our reference standard: it is a detailed, published framework for AI, and Georgia, where our university partner is based, has set EU integration as a policy aim. We use AI to help write and tutor clinical education, and we design that use to align with both. No regulator approves or certifies educational AI of this kind, and we do not claim that any does. This page sets out how we use AI, the rules we work to in each place, and what we do not claim.

Three rules we follow

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Meaningful human oversight. AI assists our authoring and our tutoring, but all core clinical teaching is AI-drafted, then reviewed and signed by a named clinician before a learner sees it. The signing clinician holds editorial responsibility for the text. AI does not make clinical judgments, and it does not decide a summative mark, a progression decision or an award.
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Transparency. We are labelling every learning surface with how AI is used, in one of three classes: deterministic (no generative model); AI-drafted, clinician-signed (published only after a named clinician’s signature, with the signer and date beside the label); or adaptive, formative (recommends, explains and questions, and never grades or certifies). You will be told whenever you are interacting with AI.
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Educational use only. MD Acumen is an education platform that builds clinical acumen and AI literacy. It is not intended for the diagnosis, prevention, monitoring or treatment of any patient, it gives no patient-specific advice, and it is not designed, marketed or supplied as a medical device or a clinical decision support system. Please never enter patient-identifiable information into any feature of the platform.

Four further commitments

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Your data. MD Acumen Ltd is the data controller for learner data and handles it under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. No mark, progression decision or award is decided solely by automated means.
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Fairness and access. We design AI features to treat learners fairly, and we make reasonable adjustments in line with the Equality Act 2010.
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Awards and certificates. Our Certificates of Advanced Studies and our NVU (UK) CPD certificates sit under the AI and medical-education framework agreed with New Vision University. Our use of AI to develop learning materials is declared, and every item is verified and signed off by a named clinical academic before release, in line with the university’s regulatory position.
✓
Claims we do not make. We do not say that the GMC, the MHRA, NICE, the RCGP or any other regulator or professional body approves, accredits or endorses our teaching or our use of AI. Where we align to a guideline, we name the document, its version and the date relied on.

Which rules apply where

United Kingdom

MD Acumen Ltd is a UK company and operates under UK law. The UK has no AI statute. AI is governed by existing law and existing regulators: the ICO for personal data, the MHRA for medical devices, the GMC for the professional standards of doctors, and the Advertising Standards Authority for claims. Government asks regulators to apply five principles: safety, transparency, fairness, accountability and contestability. The Medical Devices Regulations 2002 apply to software with a medical purpose; ours has an educational purpose only.

European Union, our reference standard

The EU AI Act reaches a provider outside the EU where the output of its AI system is used in the EU. For education, it treats as high-risk any AI that decides admission, evaluates learning outcomes, sets a learner’s level or monitors cheating in tests; those duties apply from 2 December 2027. Our adaptive features are formative only and no AI decides a mark, so we are designed to sit outside that category; this is our assessment and we keep it under review. Transparency duties for AI that interacts with people apply from 2 August 2026, and our class labels give that disclosure. EU learners are also covered by the EU GDPR; the Commission’s adequacy decisions for the UK run to 27 December 2031.

Georgia and elsewhere

Our Certificates of Advanced Studies are awarded by New Vision University in Georgia, and our CPD courses carry an NVU (UK) CPD certificate. Both sit under the AI and medical-education framework agreed with the university. Georgia has its own Law on Personal Data Protection (2023) and has set EU integration as a policy aim, which is why we use EU law as a reference standard. Each country’s law applies to its own residents and institutions, and we will check local requirements with the awarding university.

The detailed assurance statement for each programme is on the Regulatory Assurance page. This statement describes our approach; it is not legal advice.

Regulatory and policy references

Checked on 11 October 2026 and at each editorial refresh. Where a rule changes, this page is re-dated.

United Kingdom

  1. UK AI policy. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation. gov.uk white paper
  2. Data protection law. Parliament. UK GDPR, as retained and amended. legislation.gov.uk
  3. Data protection law. Parliament. Data Protection Act 2018. legislation.gov.uk
  4. Data protection law. Parliament. Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, including the automated decision-making provisions. legislation.gov.uk
  5. Data protection regulator. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Guidance on AI and data protection. ico.org.uk
  6. Medical device regulator. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Software and artificial intelligence (AI) as a medical device. gov.uk
  7. Medical device regulator. MHRA. Medical devices: software applications (apps). gov.uk
  8. Medical device law. Parliament. The Medical Devices Regulations 2002 (SI 2002/618). legislation.gov.uk
  9. Professional standards for doctors. General Medical Council (GMC). Good medical practice (2024). gmc-uk.org
  10. Professional standards for doctors. GMC. Artificial intelligence and innovative technologies (learning materials). gmc-uk.org
  11. Equality law. Parliament. Equality Act 2010. legislation.gov.uk
  12. Advertising and consumer law. Committee of Advertising Practice and Parliament. The CAP Code; Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. asa.org.uk

European Union

  1. EU AI Act. European Union. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the Artificial Intelligence Act). EUR-Lex
  2. EU AI Act, as amended. European Union. Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (the Digital Omnibus on AI): dates for the high-risk rules and transparency. EUR-Lex
  3. EU AI Act, explorer. Future of Life Institute (unofficial). Article-by-article reader for Regulation (EU) 2024/1689. artificialintelligenceact.eu
  4. EU data protection law. European Union. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the General Data Protection Regulation). EUR-Lex
  5. EU–UK data flows. European Commission. Adequacy decisions, including those for the United Kingdom. commission.europa.eu

Georgia

  1. Georgian data protection law. Parliament of Georgia. Law of Georgia on Personal Data Protection (2023), English text. matsne.gov.ge

Regulatory Assurance

The AI position programme by programme: AI in use today, who signs, how data is handled and the rules we work to.

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Legal and regulatory

What our awards do and do not confer; the data controller statement.

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Quality and governance

The six-block quality scheme.

Open
Conflicts, independence and sponsorship

Conflicts, independence and sponsorship

Never a charge to a learner we owe a duty to; no pharmaceutical funding of any credit-bearing or paid programme; CPD-event sponsorship only, under the ABPI Code, declared within seven days.

Sponsor Disclosure Register

Every arrangement, on the record.

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Who signs

Who signs

Every clinical statement MD Acumen publishes is signed by Professor Rajesh Varma, GMC 4196453, Director of MD Acumen Ltd and GP Partner and GP Trainer at The Colne Practice, Hertfordshire. The register is kept on the learning platform and rendered, never typed.

About MD Acumen

The Director, the adviser, the examiners.

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Verify a certificate

Verify a certificate

Every certificate issued by MD Acumen carries an ID. Enter it to confirm the certificate is genuine and current.

Verify a certificate

On the learning platform.

Open on learn.mdacumen.com

Where this rung sits

The same method runs from the first clinical year to advanced practice. Each rung builds on the one before.

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