California requires doctors take CME in pain management

Physicians support more training, but are skeptical about it being a law.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Nov. 19, 2001.

If California physicians want to renew their licenses, they're going to have to brush up on pain management techniques.

California enacted legislation this fall that requires physicians who could encounter pain management and end-of-life care issues to take 12 hours of continuing medical education classes on the topic to renew their medical licenses. The legislation goes into effect Jan. 1, 2002.

While some other states have mandated that physicians must take certain CME classes to renew medical licenses, California is the first state to require classes in pain management. Also, it marks the first time that California is requiring physicians to take a specific CME class.

The new mandate is being met with mixed opinions.

Some physicians favor it because pain management is a complex area that presents both the risks of overtreating or undertreating pain. But physicians also worry about the precedent of a state mandating which CME classes they must take to keep their medical license current.

"Doctors look at it with a degree of skepticism," said Santa Monica, Calif., family physician Leonard Fromer, MD, president of the California Academy of Family Physicians. "But physicians need to understand how to treat pain in end-of-life care."

"The bill is well-intended," added Philipp M. Lippe, MD, executive medical director of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. "We support more training for pain management. But we didn't feel comfortable with the state telling physicians what they need to do." [...]