District of Columbia CE Requirements for Nurse Practitioners

DC APRNs must complete 15 contact hours in pharmacology as part of the 24-hour biennial CE requirement. These pharmacology hours count toward the 24-hour total, not in addition to it.

2 of the 24 contact hours must be on LGBTQ topics (cultural competency or specialized clinical training focused on LGBTQ patients). Same requirement as for RNs. Counts toward the 24-hour total.

17 DCMR § 5406.1(b) sets public-health-priority CE at ten percent (10%) of the 24-hour RN CE total, i.e. 2.4 hours — reached by NPs through the RN-licensure-maintenance chain (§ 5903.5(a) requires an NP certificate holder to independently maintain a current RN license, which is governed by Chapter 54 § 5406; § 5900.2 additionally provides that Chapter 54 'shall supplement' the NP chapter). The statutory HIV/AIDS-specific 3-credit mandate (D.C. Code § 3-1205.10(b)(4)) is separately WAIVED for registered nursing by 17 DCMR § 5406.2 — so there is no live, additive HIV/AIDS obligation; HIV/AIDS content is absorbed into the Director's public-health-priorities topics under 'sexual and reproductive health.' Topics identified by the Director include: sexual and reproductive health, chronic disease management, One Health, healthcare professional retention/capacity building (including suicide prevention, burnout, substance use, and implicit bias/cultural humility/CLAS), and community and patient safety. Counts toward the 24-hour RN total, not the separate 15-hour APRN pharmacology block.