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Thursday, June 30, 2016

State's top physician endorses opioid education mandate

By Rich Lord
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Originally posted June 8, 2016

Pennsylvania’s top physician said today that legislation compelling most doctors to take refresher courses in proper narcotic prescribing won’t overburden her colleagues in medicine -- and could help to counter the opioid and heroin epidemic.

“The bill that’s being discussed would be requirements for two hours of opioid education,” said Physician General Rachel Levine. “But it would also count toward [every doctor’s] quality and safety [education] requirement.”

Some doctors have said they don’t want to be told which continuing education courses to take. “But I think that there are sometimes topics that are so necessary to get updated on that all physicians should get updated,” Dr. Levine said. Opioid prescribing is one such topic, she said, “because of the very serious nature of the epidemic.”

The article is here.