(a) The Legislature finds and declares that a commendable patient safety record has been maintained in the past by dentists and those other qualified providers of anesthesia services who, pursuant to a dentist’s authorization, administer patient sedation, and that the increasing number of pharmaceuticals and techniques used to administer them for patient sedation require additional regulation to maintain patient safety in the future.
(b) The Legislature further finds and declares all of the following:
(1) That previous laws enacted in 1980 contained separate and distinct definitions for general anesthesia and the state of consciousness.
(2) That in dental practice, there is a continuum of sedation used which cannot be adequately defined in terms of consciousness and general anesthesia.
(3) That the administration of sedation through this continuum results in different states of consciousness that may or may not be predictable in every instance.
(4) That in most instances, the level of sedation will result in a predictable level of consciousness during the entire time of sedation.
(c) The Legislature further finds and declares that the educational standards presently required for general anesthesia should be required when the degree of sedation in the continuum of sedation is such that there is a reasonable possibility that loss of consciousness may result, even if unintended. These degrees of sedation have been referred to as “deep sedation” and “light general anesthesia” in dental literature. However, achieving the degree of sedation commonly referred to as “light conscious sedation,” where a margin of safety exists wide enough to render unintended loss of consciousness unlikely, requires educational standards appropriate to the administration of the resulting predictable level of consciousness.
(Amended by Stats. 2005, Ch. 539, Sec. 3. Effective January 1, 2006.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018