This chapter explores discourses around the basic science component of the undergraduate medical curriculum and aims to provoke thinking about new approaches. The need for new thinking arises from four problems: basic science overload early in the curriculum; new themes and priorities that complete for curriculum space early in the medical course; attitudes towards basic sciences, which may reflect that medical practitioners’ primary purpose is – after all – healthcare; and the need to futureproof basic science learning against unpredictable clinical problems. It is accepted that basic science learning supports clinical reasoning, but considerations include which basic science disciplines to teach, in what amount and at what depth. Contradictions related to the basic science component of a medical curriculum may be addressed by ‘switching it up’; that is, changing our expectations, changing our focus and changing the timing of when basic science appears in the curriculum. However, the chapter recognises that ideological beliefs, educational trends, power and capital, and political processes will impact the acceptability and feasibility of such changes.