2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY - Examining Boards and Professional Colleges (§§ 1 — 6033) › Chapter 97 - Board of Examiners of Veterinary Medicine (§§ 2951 — 2969) › § 2962 - Recertification of licenses

All licensed veterinary doctors and licensed veterinary technologists and technicians to the practice in Puerto Rico pursuant to the provisions of this chapter, shall comply every three years with the recertification procedure provided for health professionals in Puerto Rico in §§ 3001 et seq. of Title 24, known as the “Health Services Integral Reform Act of Puerto Rico”.
(a) The Office for the Regulation and Certification of Health Professionals shall remit a registry or recertification form to each license holder by mail.
(b) The person shall complete the form and return it to the Board on or before December 31 of that same year.
(1) The license-holder shall complete the form and return it to the Office for the Regulation and Certification of Health Professionals no later than thirty (30) working days after the date of the receipt thereof.
(c) The license-renewal applicant shall provide to the Board or the Subboard such evidence required by it regarding his/her compliance with the obligation to participate in professional education programs. Said programs shall be sponsored by professional associations, educational institutions, or others, accredited and approved by Board or the Subboard as the case may be. Taking post-graduate studies shall be considered as equivalent to the requirements; Provided, That the Board or the Subboard shall prescribe, based on valid reasons, the type or nature of the post-graduate studies. The Board or the Subboard is hereby empowered to establish the rules and criteria that shall be used for the annual professional continuing education requirements to be complied with by the applicants for the triennial recertification.
(d) The Board or the Subboard, as the case may be, shall through regulations to such effects, exempt from complying with the requirement of continuing education, for the triennial recertification.
(e) The fee for the renewal of license recertification every three (3) years, shall be determined by the Board or the Subboard as empowered in this chapter.
(f) Every license holder who practices veterinary medicine or veterinary technology, as the case may be, who has not complied with or has been exempted from the recertification requirement, shall incur a violation of this chapter. The licenses may be recertified at any time within five (5) years of having expired, once its holders who are in arrears, submit satisfactory evidence of having complied with the continuing education requirements and of having paid the corresponding recertification fees owed. After the fifth year, the license cannot be recertified and the applicant shall have to renew his/her license by resubmitting to the revalidation examination. The Board may, through regulations, exempt any license holder from the license recertification requirement up to a maximum of five (5) years, while said license holder is in active military service, and without a time limit during a national emergency.
History —Aug. 4, 1979, No. 194, p. 549, § 12, renumbered as § 13 and amended on Dec. 28, 2001, No. 187, § 11.