Once you secure your medical license, you must continue your education so that you can keep your license valid and avoid a suspension. The Pennsylvania State Board of Medicine sets the continuing education requirements.
The basic requirement is that you must have 100 credit hours of continuing education. You must earn this every two year period from January 1 of an odd year to December 31 of the following even year.
Categories
All education courses must be either Category 1 or 2. Category 1 options have approval from an accredited provider. Category 2 are activities you self-designate. They are also not eligible under Category 1. It is essential that category 2 activities pertain to the topics designated by the board for continuing education even though they may not have direct approval or come from an accredited source.
Specific courses
The majority of the 100 hours is your choice as to what you want to do, but the board does require that you have at least 20 hours in category 1 activities. As part of the 100 hours, you must have 12 hours of courses in patient safety and risk management.
In addition, you must have two hours in child abuse recognition and reporting requirements, and two hours in dispensing and recognizing opioid drugs and pain management. You cannot use these four hours to count towards the 12-hour patient and safety risk management requirement, but they do count towards the overall 100 required hours.
All credit must have board approval, even category 2. You cannot gain credits in office management or practice building.