Request By:
Ms. Sharon M. Weisenbeck, M.S., R.N.
Executive Director
Kentucky Board of Nursing
Dupont Circle, Suite 430
Louisville, Kentucky 40207-4875
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Richard C. Carroll, Assistant Attorney General
In Re : The Effect of House Bill 425 on Continuing Education for Nurses
By way of a letter dated April 23, 1990, you requested an opinion regarding the effect that the passage of House Bill 425 by the 1990 General Assembly would have on the number of mandatory continuing education hours that nurses are required to complete in order to maintain their licenses as provided in KRS 314.073. Specifically, you requested an opinion as to whether the number of hours required for the AIDS course which must be taken in order to renew a license to practice nursing under House Bill 425 should be in addition to the 30 hours of continuing education required by KRS 314.073 or whether said hours are to be included within the 30 hours.
In responding to your question, it is necessary to review the pertinent provisions of House Bill 425. Section 3 of that bill provides:
(1) The Cabinet for Human Resources shall approve appropriate educational courses on the transmission, control, treatment and prevention of the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome with an emphasis on appropriate behavior and attitude change to be completed as specified in the respective chapters by each person licensed or certified under KRS Chapters 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 320, 327, 333, 335 and emergency medical technicians licensed pursuant to KRS Chapter 211.
(2) Each licensee or certificate holder shall submit confirmation on a form provided by the Cabinet of having completed the course by July 1, 1991, except persons licensed under KRS Chapters 314 and 327 for whom the completion date shall be July 1, 1992.
It is also important to note the effect that Section 9 to House Bill 425 has on this issue. That Section of the new bill amends KRS 314.073 which is the provision in Chapter 314 dealing with licensure renewal. As indicated in your letter, that statute mandates that individuals seeking to have their nursing licenses renewed must obtain a minimum of 30 hours in continuing education over a two-year period. Section 9 in House Bill 425 did not amend the previously enacted Sections 1 through 5 of that statute but added a new Section 6, which provided:The continuing education shall include the completion of the course described in section 3(1) of this act.
The previous existing Section 6 of the statute was placed in a new Section 7.
In answering the question posed in your letter, it is necessary to refer to KRS 446.080 which provides:
(1) All statutes of this state shall be liberally construed with a view to promote their objects and carry out the intent of the legislature, and the rule that statutes and derogation of the common law are strictly construed shall not apply to the statutes of this state.
. . .
(4) All words and phrases shall be construed according to the common and approved usage of language, but technical words and phrases, and such others as may have acquired a peculiar inappropriate meaning in the law, shall be construed according to such meaning.
The application of the above-cited statute along with the supporting case law, as well as the purpose behind House Bill 425 as indicated by the General Assembly in Sections 1 and 2 of the bill, I believe, require that the hours associated with the AIDS course should be included within, and not in addition to, the 30 continuing education hours which nurses are required to complete in order to renew their licenses under KRS 314.073. A clear, simple reading of the amendment to KRS 314.073 found in Section 9 of House Bill 425 does not reveal any intention by the Legislature to increase the number of continuing education hours which nurses must obtain in order to renew their licenses to practice. Instead, that new provision simply mandates that, of those 30 hours, the licensure renewal applicant must have taken an AIDS course which was approved by the Cabinet. If the General Assembly intended to increase the number of mandatory continuing education hours, it could have amended Section 1 of KRS 314.073. Instead, the members of the Legislature chose to simply provide that the AIDS course should become a portion of the continuing education obtained by each nurse seeking licensure renewal.
Therefore, for the foregoing reasons, it is the opinion of this office that the AIDS course required by House Bill 425 in regard to nurses shall be included as a portion of, and not in addition to, the 30 hours of mandatory continuing education required by KRS 314.073.