The nearest thing Connecticut’s Board of Examiners for Nursing publishes to a sedation document is a single undated page headed “GUIDANCE OFFERED ON PROPOFOL ADMINISTRATION” (p. 1) — 173 words about who should administer propofol, whose operative sentence is quoted below. It is guidance — its operative verb is should — and the words nurse, policy and record do not appear in it. No document on the Board’s published guidance list is titled for sedation, and none of the seven read in full for this page sets a moderate sedation standard for the registered nurse.
Connecticut at a glance
| Board | Connecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing, within the Department of Public Health; the document prints “CONNECTICUT BOARD OF EXAMINERS FOR NURSING” (p. 1). |
| Document | Propofol Guidance (the Board’s own title for it). One page, 173 words, PDF. Unless a citation names another document, page numbers here are to that page. |
| Rule it applies | None — the note cites no Connecticut statute and no regulation. What it names instead is a joint statement the AANA and the ASA developed on administering propofol, and the drug’s own package insert (p. 1). |
| Status | Guidance, filed by the Board under Declaratory Rulings & Guidelines. In its 173 words shall and must appear not once, and it calls its own content “recommendations” (p. 1). |
| Dates | None printed, on the document or on the Board’s page. The only date evidence is the PDF file’s creation timestamp, 2005-01-14; treat the note as undated. |
| Who it covers | Not stated by license. Under the Board’s own letterhead, the note’s text names no profession, license type or role. Its subject is “persons trained in the administration for general anesthesia, who are not simultaneously involved in these surgical or diagnostic procedures” (p. 1). |
| Who it does not cover | “This statement is not intended to apply when Propofol is given to intubated, ventilated patients in a critical care setting” (p. 1). |
| Settings the document names | One, and only inside that exclusion — a “critical care setting” (p. 1). No hospital, ambulatory surgical center, office or clinic is named. |
| Re-verification interval | Not stated. The note sets no interval and contains no re-verification language. |
| Where the record lives | Not addressed. The note says nothing about documentation, records or facility policy. |
| CE hours | Not stated. No contact-hour count and no continuing-education requirement appears in the note. |
What the Board of Examiners for Nursing says about propofol
The document is six sentences and a footnote. It opens on the AANA and ASA joint statement and its reasoning: “Because sedation is a continuum, it is not always possible to predict how an individual patient will respond” (p. 1). Then comes the operative sentence:
“Whenever Propofol is used for sedation/anesthesia, it should be administered only by persons trained in the administration for general anesthesia, who are not simultaneously involved in these surgical or diagnostic procedures”
Connecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing — Propofol Guidance (p. 1)
It grounds the restriction in the drug’s own labeling, and warns that “failure to follow these recommendations could put patients at increased risk of significant injury or death” (p. 1). The same concern extends beyond one drug: “Similar concerns apply when other intravenous induction agents are used for sedation, such as Thiopental, Methohexital, or Etomidate” (p. 1). Read plainly, this is a document about anesthetic induction agents and who is trained to give them, not a standard for the nurse administering or monitoring moderate sedation — which is what our own course covers, and these agents are outside it.
What the Board publishes, and where sedation is not
As listed on the Board’s own page on 2026-09-02, its heading Declaratory Rulings & Guidelines carries seventeen rulings and guidance documents, none of them titled for sedation. Seven of them were read in full for this page — the propofol and bupivacaine notes, the controlled-substances statement, both catheter guidelines, the medical-protocols guidelines and the decision model — along with Chapter 378 of the General Statutes and the nursing regulations. The phrase moderate sedation appears in none of them, and the word sedation does not appear in Chapter 378 at all. Two of the seven mention sedation: the propofol note above, and one bullet in the Statement on the Use of Controlled Substances for the Treatment of Pain — in a list of practices the Board says the nursing community has encouraged — to the effect that nurses may utilize sedation as an acceptable means for controlling pain and discomfort (controlled-substances statement, p. 2). That is pain management, not a procedural sedation standard.
For an act it has written no standard for, what the Board does publish is a method: its Decision Making Model (May 2002), a one-page flowchart of seven questions to the nurse — about state law, scope of practice, basic education, documented completion of additional education, employer authorisation, knowing how, and current competence. One of those seven asks for a document, and it asks for exactly what a sedation file is for.
What a Connecticut facility should be able to show
No sedation standard appears in what the Board publishes: nothing on its guidance list is titled for sedation, and none of the seven read in full for this page sets one. So your moderate sedation practice is measured against your own policy, together with whatever the agency that licenses your facility requires — a question for that regulator, not for the Board of Examiners for Nursing. Three records follow from the Board’s own decision method:
- A written moderate sedation policy — no document read for this page writes one for you, so yours defines assessment, monitoring, drug administration, emergency management and who may do what.
- Per-nurse evidence of education for the act — the Board’s model asks whether the nurse can document successful completion of additional education to perform the act.
- Per-nurse evidence of current competence, re-verified on an interval your policy names — none of the documents read for this page sets a sedation interval, so the interval is yours to set and to defend.
The CSRN™ course — 10 CE contact hours developed and delivered by Capt. M. Ron Eslinger, CRNA, with module exams, case studies and a certificate ID your credentialing office can verify — is built to be records 2 and 3 on that list. Facility seats and roster tracking →
Questions Connecticut facilities ask
Does the Connecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing publish a moderate sedation standard?
No. Nothing on its published guidance list is titled for sedation, and the phrase moderate sedation does not appear in the seven documents read in full for this page, in Chapter 378, or in the nursing regulations. The closest is the propofol note — “Whenever Propofol is used for sedation/anesthesia, it should be administered only by persons trained in the administration for general anesthesia” (p. 1), with a footnote excluding intubated, ventilated patients in a critical care setting — guidance rather than regulation, and it names no license type at all.
Does Connecticut set a renewal interval for sedation competency?
Not stated. The propofol note sets no interval and carries no re-verification or documentation language. The annual-revalidation language in the Board material read for this page sits in its two catheter guidelines — epidural, intrathecal, intrapleural, peripheral-nerve, PICC, mid-clavicular and mid-line catheters — and both state on their face that the response is not intended to be binding on any party. Neither one sets an interval for sedation. The interval you write into your sedation policy is your own.
Does Connecticut require the CSRN™ course specifically?
No. The Board material read for this page requires no sedation course, and sets no sedation standard for one to attach to; no state mandates this specific course. What its Decision Making Model asks is whether the nurse can document successful completion of additional education for the act and is currently competent; CSRN™ is designed to be that evidence.
Compliance note (last reviewed September 2026): This page is educational information about what the Connecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing publishes — not legal advice and not a compliance determination. Every quotation was checked word-for-word on 2026-09-02 against the Board’s Propofol Guidance PDF, and page numbers refer to that one-page document except where the citation names another. Material from the Board’s other guidance documents, from Chapter 378 of the General Statutes and from the nursing regulations is paraphrased, and the document it comes from is named in the same sentence. The silence recorded here is the silence of the Board of Examiners for Nursing, of the Nurse Practice Act and of the nursing regulations, which is what this review traced; rules administered by other Connecticut agencies, including those that license health care facilities, were not traced and are not summarized here. Confirm the current text and your own facility policy before relying on this summary. No state mandates this specific course.