The Maryland Board of Nursing lists no sedation document on the practice shelf it publishes, and neither of the two Board chapters closest to the work — COMAR 10.27.09 and COMAR 10.27.20 — uses the word. What governs a Maryland RN administering or monitoring moderate sedation is the Nurse Practice Act’s general definition of registered nursing — “the performance of acts requiring substantial specialized knowledge, judgment, and skill” (p. 5) — the Board’s general standards of practice, and your own policy. Every negative here is scoped to the documents read for this page: §8–101, those two chapters and the Board’s own practice pages; COMAR Title 10, Subtitle 27 holds others that were not read.
Maryland at a glance
| Board | Maryland Board of Nursing — “the State Board of Nursing” (p. 1) |
| Document | Maryland Code, Health Occupations Article, §8–101 (Definitions) — Annotated Code of Maryland, 2026 Regular Session web edition (PDF, 6 pp). Also cited, by section: COMAR 10.27.09, Standards of Practice for Registered Nurses, and COMAR 10.27.20, Management of Infusion Therapy by the Registered Nurse and the Licensed Practical Nurse. |
| Rule it is | Statute — the definitions section of Title 8, Nurses, applying “In this title” (p. 1). It routes anything past the acts it lists back to the Board: “Performance of additional acts authorized by the Board under § 8–205 of this title” (p. 6). |
| Status | Binding, and definitional: §8–101 has the force of law but defines licences rather than procedures — it neither authorises nor restricts sedation, and never uses the word. COMAR 10.27.09 and 10.27.20 are regulations written in the mandatory shall; neither mentions sedation either. |
| Dates | Statute: 2026 Regular Session web edition. COMAR 10.27.09 effective February 20, 1989; COMAR 10.27.20 effective October 7, 1996; both last amended October 13, 2025. |
| Who it covers | Everyone licensed under Title 8 — a licence “issued by the Board to practice” (p. 3) registered nursing, licensed practical nursing or advanced practice registered nursing (p. 3), the nurse anesthetist included (p. 4). |
| Who it does not cover | Only Title 8 — §8–101 confers nothing on any other profession. Dentistry, medicine and Maryland facility licensure sit with other regulators, may carry sedation rules of their own, and were not examined here. |
| Settings the document names | Not stated. §8–101 names no practice setting — no hospital, ambulatory surgical facility, endoscopy suite or office. The closest is “community health” (p. 5), in the practical-nursing list. |
| Re-verification interval | Not stated. §8–101 sets none. The nearest binding Board language, § 10.27.20.03 D, requires the licensee to be evaluated for continued clinical competency at planned periodic time intervals — it names no interval, and it is an infusion-therapy rule, not a sedation rule. |
| Where the record lives | Not stated in §8–101. The nearest analogue, § 10.27.20.03 B, puts the duty on the licensee — documented evidence of clinical competency before independently managing infusion therapy — and names no custodian; § 10.27.20.04 B’s records duty is patient records, not a competency file. |
| CE hours | Not stated. §8–101 sets no contact-hour count and names no course. |
What the Maryland Board of Nursing publishes
The Board’s Nurse Practice Act page carries its practice shelf: new-graduate practice; a general Frequently Asked Questions & Practice Topics page; end-stage renal disease; the RN case manager and delegating nurse in assisted living; delegation in dialysis settings; and over-the-counter products (§ Practice Issues). No title on that list names sedation. The same page points nurses instead at Health Occupations Title 8 and COMAR Title 10, Subtitle 27 (§ Maryland Nurse Practice Act).
§8–101 itself defines a licence, not a procedure:
“the performance of acts requiring substantial specialized knowledge, judgment, and skill based on the biological, physiological, behavioral, or sociological sciences as the basis for assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation of the practice of nursing”
Maryland Code, Health Occupations §8–101(o)(1) (p. 5)
The clause a sedation programme turns on is among the acts registered nursing includes: “Execution of therapeutic regimen, including the administration of medication and treatment” (p. 5) — a general grant, not a sedation authorisation, carrying no training, monitoring or documentation condition of its own. It neither bars the LPN from sedation nor authorises the RN to give it; the line §8–101 draws between the licences is the weight of the judgement — “substantial specialized knowledge, judgment, and skill” (p. 5) versus acting “in a team relationship” (p. 5).
Where Maryland’s binding competency language sits
A Maryland sedation programme is measured instead against the Board’s general standards of practice — binding regulations — and the facility’s own policy, which those regulations oblige the nurse to follow (§ 10.27.09.03 B(2)(b)). Paraphrased, cited by section:
- Practising past your competence is the nurse’s own duty to correct. § 10.27.09.03 J(2)(a) gives the RN the right and the responsibility to refuse a nursing act beyond the parameters of the nurse’s education, capabilities and clinical competency; J(2)(b) requires the RN to obtain appropriate education, training and supervision as required to perform nursing functions beyond the parameters of the nurse’s education and clinical competence; C requires the RN to acquire and maintain current knowledge and competency in nursing practice.
- The nearest documented-competency rule is about infusion therapy, not sedation. § 10.27.20.03 requires a licensee performing infusion therapy to complete a programme of study with didactic content and a clinical practicum consistent with standards established by the Infusion Nurses Society or other bodies approved by the Board, on top of the documented-evidence and periodic-evaluation duties in the rows above (§ 10.27.20.03 A, B, D). It never mentions sedation, and should not be cited as a sedation rule.
What a Maryland facility should be able to show
These three come from the Board’s general competency regulations, since the rules read here name no sedation record:
- A written sedation policy. § 10.27.09.03 B(2)(b) obliges the RN to comply with the policies and procedures of the practice setting — which makes your policy the document that sets the sedation standard those regulations leave unwritten.
- Per-nurse evidence of initial education and training for every RN who administers or monitors moderate sedation — the evidence § 10.27.20.03 B requires for infusion therapy, borrowed because those regulations set no sedation equivalent.
- Per-nurse evidence of continued competency, re-checked on an interval your policy names: § 10.27.20.03 D requires planned periodic time intervals for infusion therapy and names no figure, and the rules read here set no sedation interval.
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 Maryland facilities ask
Does the Maryland Board of Nursing have a moderate sedation position statement?
No. Sedation is not among the practice material its Nurse Practice Act page lists (§ Practice Issues), neither COMAR 10.27.09 nor COMAR 10.27.20 mentions sedation, and §8–101 does not use the word — silence in the documents checked for this page, not a survey of every chapter in COMAR Title 10, Subtitle 27, and not a statement about every Maryland regulator.
Can I ask the Board for a ruling, the way older guides suggest?
Not in the way they describe. The Board’s FAQ says the routine practice of asking for and receiving declaratory rulings ceased in 2008, and that it withdrew all of its previously issued rulings; copies are released with a disclaimer that they are no longer valid positions of the Board (Q: Declaratory Rulings). Board staff give no practice opinions, approvals or legal interpretation; consultation is limited to directing enquirers to applicable statutes, regulations and possibly other evidence-based guidelines (Q: RN Scope of Practice).
Does Maryland require the CSRN™ course?
No. §8–101 names no course and sets no contact-hour count, COMAR 10.27.09 and COMAR 10.27.20 impose none, and nothing on the Board’s practice shelf addresses sedation. No state mandates this specific course. What the binding rules require is compliance with the policies and procedures of the practice setting (§ 10.27.09.03 B(2)(b)) — and CSRN™ is built to be that evidence where your policy makes moderate sedation a competency.
Compliance note (last reviewed September 2026): This page is educational information about Maryland’s Nurse Practice Act and the Board of Nursing’s standards of practice, not legal advice or a compliance determination. Every quotation was checked word-for-word against the 2026 Regular Session web edition of Health Occupations §8–101 on 2026-09-02; page numbers refer to that edition. Statements attributed to COMAR 10.27.09, COMAR 10.27.20 and the Board’s own pages are paraphrased and cited by section, not quoted. Both COMAR chapters were last amended in October 2025, so confirm the current text and your own facility policy before relying on this summary. No state mandates this specific course.