Health Care Professionals Group

Do medical doctors need to renew their degree, or get recertified from time to time?

...Or, can someone get a medical degree and become a doctor, and then just endlessly practice medicine for years and years without having to get recertified or retrained? Or do clinics and hospitals not care, and if you have an MD and experience, it doesn't matter how old your degree is? Just curious.

Public Comments

1. yes, they have to re new their licence!
2. In ost states there are Continuing Education requirement and any good hopital reviews the doctor credentials
3. you have to have enough CME hours to be re-credentialed.
4. it depends if yur doin a new thing
5. All American doctors are required to complete every year a certain amount of Continuing Education hours. These hours can be completed by attending conferences, classes, etc.
6. they have health care proffesional council reports to do,, and they must demonstrate they are not only using their skills frequently but that they are taking steps to increase their knowledge as medicine and health care issues change day by day, they have a yearly audit to do and if they fail they can be struck off hope this helps
7. Aside from continuing education, you have to recertify in your specialty through an exam and review board every ten years to see if you are up on your current innovations and techniques. The exam reinforces the book angle of it, and the review board analyzes your methods of patient care and treatment. SO, no you don't just get an M.D. and have it home free.
8. You never lose MD (unless the medical review board takes it away). Board Certification in a special area does require recertification.
9. Absolutely! Medicine is continuing education and can you just imagine if your doctor of ten years didn't have to learn about new medical techniques, medications and treatments??! That would be scary!
10. yeah they need to pass out some international test after certain time period so that they could update there knowledge n follow latest medical techniques.
11. All physicians are required to take continuing education courses and recertify periodically, especially if they are specialists. Medical practice changes rapidly these days with new drugs,procedures and treatments being discovered and implemented almost daily. Recertification and continuing ed are a must to stay on top of the most recent knowledge. Lynne, RN