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 2025 Pain Medicine Certification Exam topics are:
| Percent of Exam | Pain Medicine Certification Exam Topics |
|---|---|
| 5% | Background Concepts |
| 5% | Assessment of Pain |
| 15% | Treatment of Pain: Pharmacotherapy |
| 15% | Treatment of Pain: Procedural |
| 10% | Treatment of Pain: Psychological, Physical, and Integrative Therapies |
| 1% | Taxonomy: Classification of Pain Syndromes |
| 1% | Chronic Widespread Pain Syndromes |
| 6.5% | Acute Pain, Pain due to Trauma, and Procedural Pain |
| 12.5% | Musculoskeletal Pain |
| 6% | Cancer Pain and Cancer-related Pain |
| 4% | Visceral Pain |
| 3% | Headache and Orofacial Pain |
| 8% | Neuropathic Pain |
| 8% | Special Cases |
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