The American Board of Anesthesiology® regularly reviews and updates the content for the Pain Medicine Board Exam as necessary. Then, to help you focus your review, it issues an outline of the primary medical topics and their approximate percentages for a typical exam.
The topics you can expect to see on both the 2023 Pain Medicine Certification and Pain Medicine Maintenance of Certification exams are:
| Pain Medicine Certification and Maintenance of Certification Board Exam Topics | Percent of Exam |
|---|---|
| Anatomy and Physiology: Mechanisms of Nociceptive Transmission | 1% |
| Development of Pain Systems | 1% |
| Placebo and Pain | 1% |
| Psychosocial and Cultural Aspects of Pain | 1% |
| Sex and Gender Issues in Pain | 1% |
| Opioids | 4% |
| Antipyretic Analgesics: Nonsteroidals, Acetaminophen, and Phenazone Derivatives | 4% |
| Antidepressants and Anticonvulsants | 4% |
| Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation | 1% |
| Work Rehabilitation and Management of Return to Work | 1% |
| Complimentary and Integrative Therapies (CAM) | 1% |
| Taxonomy | 1% |
| Visceral Pain | 4% |
| Headache and Facial Pain | 3% |
| Special Cases | 8% |
| General Considerations: Procedural Treatment | 1% |
| Clinical Pain Evaluation | 1% |
| Cognitive – Behavioral and Behavioral Interventions | 2% |
| Functional Outcomes and Disability | 1% |
| Imaging and Electrodiagnostic Evaluation | 1% |
| Legal and Regulatory Environment | 1% |
| Mental Health Treatment | 2% |
| Acute Pain, Pain due to Trauma, and Procedural Pain | 6% |
| Cancer Pain and Cancer-related Pain | 6% |
| Chronic Widespread Pain Syndromes | 1% |
| Musculoskeletal Pain | 12% |
| Neuroablative Pain Management | 2% |
| Neuromodulation (Implanted Devices) | 4% |
| Neuropathic Pain | 8% |
| Nonsurgical Stimulation Produced Analgesia | 3% |
| Other Analgesic Pharmacology | 4% |
| Professionalism and Quality Assurance | 1% |
| Public Health Aspects of Pain Medicine | 1% |
| Regenerative Pain Medicine | 1% |
| Research Methodology of Pain | 1% |
| Injections, Nerve Blocks, and Lesioning | 5% |
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