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 2024 Pain Medicine Certification and Pain Medicine Maintenance of Certification exams are:
| Percent of Exam | Pain Medicine Certification and Maintenance of Certification Board Exam Topics |
|---|---|
| 2–4% | Anatomy and Physiology: Mechanisms of Nociceptive Transmission |
| 0–3% | Development of Pain Systems |
| 2–4% | Research Methodology of Pain |
| 2–4% | Teamwork and Care Coordination |
| 1–3% | Legal and Regulatory Issues |
| 2–4% | Clinical Pain Evaluation |
| 1–3% | Placebo and Pain |
| 1–3% | Functional Outcomes and Disability |
| 2–4% | Psychosocial and Cultural Aspects of Pain |
| 0–3% | Sex and Gender Issues in Pain |
| 2–4% | Imaging and Electrodiagnostic Evaluation |
| 7-9% | Opioids |
| 7-9% | Antipyretic Analgesics: Nonsteroidals, Acetaminophen, and Phenazone Derivatives |
| 7-9% | Antidepressants and Anticonvulsants |
| 7-9% | Other Analgesic Pharmacology |
| 4-6% | General Considerations: Procedural Treatment |
| 3-5% | Nonsurgical Stimulation Produced Analgesia |
| 10-12% | Injections, Nerve Blocks, and Lesioning |
| 7-9% | Neuromodulation (Implanted Devices) |
| 3-5% | Neuroablative Pain Management |
| 1% | Legal and Regulatory Environment |
| 2% | Mental Health Treatment |
| 6% | Acute Pain, Pain due to Trauma, and Procedural Pain |
| 6% | Cancer Pain and Cancer-related Pain |
| 1% | Chronic Widespread Pain Syndromes |
| 12% | Musculoskeletal Pain |
| 2% | Neuroablative Pain Management |
| 4% | Neuromodulation (Implanted Devices) |
| 8% | Neuropathic Pain |
| 3% | Nonsurgical Stimulation Produced Analgesia |
| 4% | Other Analgesic Pharmacology |
| 1% | Professionalism and Quality Assurance |
| 1% | Public Health Aspects of Pain Medicine |
| 1% | Regenerative Pain Medicine |
| 1% | Research Methodology of Pain |
| 5% | Injections, Nerve Blocks, and Lesioning |
| 1-2% | Regenerative Pain Medicine |
| 4-6 | Cognitive-Behavioral and Behavioral Interventions |
| 4-6% | Mental Health Treatment |
| 4-6% | Physical Medicine and Rehabiltiation |
| 3-5% | Work Rehabilitation and Management of Return to Work |
| 3-5% | Complimentary and Integrative Therapies (CAM) |
| 1-3 | Taxonomy: Classification of Pain Syndromes (1%) |
| 1-3% | Chronic Widespread Pain Syndromes (1%) |
| 12-14% | Acute Pain, Pain due to Trauma, and Procedural Pain (6.5%) |
| 23-27% | Musculoskeletal Pain (12.5%) |
| 11-13% | Cancer Pain and Cancer-related Pain (6%) |
| 7-9% | Visceral Pain (4%) |
| 5-7% | Headache and Orofacial Pain (3%) |
| 15-17% | Neuropathic Pain (8%) |
| 15-17% | Special Cases (8%) |
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