Chapter 54 of Title 17 of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations, Registered Nursing — twenty-one pages, dated September 2, 2022 — governs the registered nurse in the District, and it says nothing about sedation. The word does not appear in it, and neither does anesthesia, analgesia, drug or intravenous. That silence is the finding this page exists to record: the Board of Nursing has not written your sedation standard for you. Everything below is quoted from that chapter with page numbers, or attributed where it is not.
District of Columbia at a glance
| Board | District of Columbia Board of Nursing. |
| Document | Title 17, Chapter 54 of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations, Registered Nursing — 21-page PDF from DC Health, dated September 2, 2022 in its running header; page numbers here refer to it. It contains no sedation provision of any kind. |
| Rule it is | The rule itself, made under the Health Occupation Revision Act of 1985 (D.C. Official Code §§ 3-1201.01 et seq.) (p. 20). |
| Status | Regulation with the force of law: “No persons may practice registered nursing in the District unless licensed or otherwise authorized to do so in accordance with this chapter” (p. 2). No Board advisory opinion or policy statement on sedation sits underneath it — see below. |
| Dates | September 2, 2022 (running header); no adoption, revision or review date on its face. A licence expires “at 12:00 midnight of June 30 of each even-numbered year” (p. 2), subject to § 5401.2. |
| Who it covers | “applicants for and holders of a license to practice registered nursing and persons otherwise authorized to practice pursuant to §§ 5411 and 5412” (p. 2). It never mentions nurse anesthesia, but § 5701.1 of Chapter 57 makes an RN licence under it the prerequisite for the CRNA certificate, so a District CRNA is a Chapter 54 licensee too. |
| Who it does not cover | Practical nurses, licensed “under the Act and chapter 55 of this title” (p. 21). Nursing assistive personnel and unlicensed assistive personnel appear as delegatees (pp. 16–18) and defined terms (p. 21), not as licensees the chapter governs. |
| Settings the document names | Care given “to all patients in all settings” (p. 14), never narrowed. Setting types are enumerated only in the supervised-practice sections (pp. 11, 13). No procedure setting is named. |
| Re-verification interval | Not stated. The chapter attaches no interval to competency of any kind. Its licence cycle is separate: continuing education completed “during the two (2) years before the expiration of the license” (p. 7). |
| Where the record lives | Not stated for competency: § 5414.2(b) asks for documented evidence of “current competency” (p. 15) without naming a holder, a form or a retention period. |
| CE hours | Twenty-four per two-year renewal cycle, waived at a first renewal after initial licensure (p. 7). No sedation topic is named. Credit “may be granted only for programs or activities approved by the Board” (p. 9). |
What Chapter 54 asks of the nurse instead
Because the chapter names no procedure, it offers no sedation-specific test — only a general one. Section 5414.2 sets seven conditions, all of which must be met before an RN may accept or perform an activity not within traditional nursing training or responsibility (p. 15). Six run to professional standards and the absence of any prohibition in the Act or the chapter; evidence-based nursing and health care literature; practice-setting policies and procedures supporting the activity; what a reasonable and prudent nurse in that setting would do; available resources; and the nurse’s acceptance of accountability for the activity and its outcomes (p. 15, paraphrased). The seventh is the condition this page is about:
“The registered nurse has the appropriate education, knowledge, competency, and training to safely perform the activity, intervention, or role and there is documented evidence of the registered nurse’s current competency”
17 DCMR § 5414.2(b) (p. 15)
Whether § 5414.2 engages for moderate sedation is the threshold the chapter leaves open: it never classifies sedation as inside or outside traditional nursing training, and § 5414.1 defines registered nursing broadly (p. 14). Where your organisation treats moderate sedation as an activity outside traditional nursing training, all seven conditions apply, the documentation in (b) among them. Two duties hold either way: § 5416.2(e) requires the nurse to “Maintain competence through ongoing learning and application of knowledge in registered nursing practice” (p. 19), and § 5416.4: “A registered nurse shall not accept or perform professional responsibilities which the nurse is not competent to perform” (p. 19).
The silence, and where the District does write sedation rules
The silence is checkable: the Board’s catalogue is short. Its Regulatory Quick Reference (April 2026, v3) lists no sedation chapter among the regulations it operates under; DC Health posts five Board advisory opinions and four policy statements (retrieved 2 September 2026); by their titles, none of the nine concerns procedural or moderate sedation. The nearest, a 2013 advisory opinion on isoflurane in the intensive care setting, is not legally binding, DC Health says; it concerns a ventilated patient receiving a prescribed volatile anaesthetic rather than procedural or moderate sedation, and names PALS, not ACLS.
The District does regulate sedation in detail, for dentists: 17 DCMR Chapter 107 conditions a dentist’s moderate-sedation certification on an approved course, a competency assessment, a clinical evaluation and life-support certification (§ 10704.2, paraphrased). That is the Board of Dentistry’s rule, and it attaches no training requirement to a registered nurse.
What a District of Columbia facility should be able to show
With no sedation rule to inherit, a District programme is measured against the chapter’s general competency provisions — §§ 5416.2(e) and 5416.4 always, § 5414.2 where your organisation treats sedation as outside traditional nursing training — which put three records in your hands:
- A written moderate-sedation policy of your own, covering assessment, monitoring, drugs and reversal agents, emergency response and recovery. Practice-setting policies and procedures are one of the seven conditions (p. 15); the chapter supplies no template and no content list.
- Per-nurse evidence of the education, knowledge, competency and training that qualifies each RN who administers or monitors moderate sedation — the evidence § 5414.2(b) asks to see wherever that section applies.
- Per-nurse evidence that the competency is current, re-verified on an interval your own policy names. The chapter asks for “current competency” (p. 15) and sets none.
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 District of Columbia facilities ask
Does the District require a sedation course before an RN may administer moderate sedation?
No. Chapter 54 requires no course for the act and does not use the word sedation anywhere in its twenty-one pages. It requires competence instead: § 5416.4 bars a nurse from accepting or performing responsibilities the nurse is not competent to perform (p. 19), and § 5414.2 adds documented current competency where the activity is outside traditional nursing training (p. 15). No state mandates this specific course.
How often does the District say sedation competency must be re-verified?
Not stated. Chapter 54 attaches no interval to competency of any kind, and it sets no sedation-specific competency requirement that an interval could attach to. Its licence-renewal cycle is separate, and none of that continuing education need be about sedation. When planning CE: § 5410.4 puts the burden of confirming a programme’s Board approval before enrolling on the licensee (p. 9).
If the Board of Nursing is silent, does that mean nothing is required?
No — it means the Board does not set the standard, so your own policy and whatever your licensing regulator requires become the standard. Chapter 54 already points at the policy: practice-setting policies and procedures are one of the seven conditions (p. 15). Facility licensure in the District is separate from nursing licensure; the Title 22 facility-licensing chapters were not traced for this page and nothing here states what they require.
Compliance note (last reviewed September 2026): This page is educational information about Chapter 54 of Title 17 of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations — not legal advice and not a compliance determination. Every quotation was checked word-for-word on 2026-09-02 against the September 2, 2022 edition; page numbers refer to that 21-page PDF. Material from the Board’s Regulatory Quick Reference (April 2026, v3), its advisory opinions and policy statements, and 17 DCMR Chapters 57 and 107 is paraphrased and attributed where used. The silence recorded here is the silence of the Board of Nursing’s own regulation and published statements, which is what this review traced; District facility-licensing rules under Title 22 were not traced. Confirm the current text and your own facility policy before relying on this summary. No state mandates this specific course.