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Committee backs study of mandatory child-abuse training for licensed medical providers
Summary
The Children and Family Law committee unanimously recommended further legislation to study requiring two hours of accredited child-abuse recognition training every two years for physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants after hearing testimony that an existing free two-hour course has had low uptake.
The House Children and Family Law committee voted unanimously to recommend future legislation examining mandatory training for licensed medical providers to identify child abuse and neglect.
The motion—moved by Representative DeSimone and advanced as a committee recommendation—directed further legislative work on House Bill 1590, which would require training for physicians, advanced practice nurses and physician assistants. The committee recorded a unanimous roll-call result in favor of recommending additional legislation.
The recommendation followed testimony from Wendy Gladstone, a retired child-abuse pediatrician, who told the committee a two-hour self-paced online course already exists and would satisfy a proposed two-hour requirement every two years. "We recognize that House Bill 1590 is not going to go anywhere, but we feel very strongly that legislation is needed to address this problem," Gladstone said. She added that outreach to 5,000 providers produced only 60 takers for the free course, arguing that a licensure requirement would compel broader participation.
Committee members debated whether the requirement should be imposed by statute or implemented through professional licensure. Representative Grossman read a letter from the New Hampshire chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics supporting a licensure pathway, noting that similar training requirements were added previously by linking education to licensure. The Office of Professional Licensure and Certification has, according to testimony, deferred to the boards of medicine and nursing, which had not made the training mandatory.
Opponents and skeptics cautioned about burdening already busy clinicians and questioned the evidence that additional continuing medical education (CME) would increase identification or reporting of abuse. "Where it has been done, is it working?" the chair asked, citing a physician's concern about a lack of demonstrated effectiveness. Supporters, including Representative Long, countered that children have died because abuse went unrecognized and said a modest, evidence-based update could help clinicians spot cases earlier.
Representative DeSimone recounted a clinical example in which a nurse advised testing that revealed cocaine exposure in an infant. "They found cocaine in the baby's system. It was child abuse. The baby's life was saved," he said, using the anecdote to underscore the potential benefit of targeted training.
The committee did not draft specific statutory language at the meeting. Members instructed that any future bill be narrowly tailored—defining required professions, curriculum standards, accreditation, and whether compliance would be enforced through licensure or statute—before returning to a committee hearing and formal vote on policy language.
The committee recorded the motion to recommend future legislation and forwarded Representative Long's report and materials for follow-up. The committee adjourned after the vote.
