Welcome to the Learn IV Sedation site

This web site has been created to provide information about continuing education courses in parenteral moderate sedation where I am the director. These courses are offered by the Oregon Academy of General Dentistry (OAGD).

This course meets or exceeds the American Dental Association’s Guidelines for the Use of Sedation and General Anesthesia by Dentists. It includes a total of 66 hours of didactic education and 46 hours of clinic.

NOTE: You will only be taught to treat adult patients in this course. Pediatric patients will not be treated in this course nor do we advocate parenteral moderate sedation for pediatric dental patients.

Click on the links above specific to the course(s) in which you have interest.

For those already trained in parenteral moderate sedation looking for continuing education, you may attend any date or dates that you wish. This includes the didactic and the clinical portion.

New for 2012: The first four didactic days of the parenteral sedation course (January 19-22 and June 18-21) have been arranged such that it meets the requirements to obtain an adult enteral (oral) sedation permit in most states.

Most parenteral moderate sedation courses offered today have you work in groups of two or three with one doctor starting the IV, another doctor giving sedative medications and sometimes a third doctor doing the dentistry and both or all three doctors counting it toward their twenty cases. We don’t do things that way.
In these courses you will have 22-24 patients scheduled and you will do everything involved in each procedure. That means you will start the IV on each of your cases. You will titrate drug to effect for each patient, then you will do dentistry for each patient.
You will be taught single and multiple drug techniques in these courses. Virtually all other parenteral moderate sedation courses taught today are single drug technique courses.
Single drug parenteral sedation techniques are very safe and quite efficacious, but there are times that a multiple drug technique is needed to safely and satisfactorily complete a case.
Critical Information for All Courses:
You must bring at least one dental assistant for the entirety of the clinic sessions. Without an assistant, you cannot possibly complete the cases we have scheduled for you in the time frame we have available. If you are able to bring two assistants, your clinic time will be much less hectic and will be overall much better experience for you. Also, you are strongly encouraged to bring your assistants for all of the didactic sessions. They will benefit from this information and there is no additional tuition charged for your first two assistants. Additional assistants beyond two are assessed a small fee to cover our expenses.
While we do not charge an extra fee for your first two dental assistants for the didactic or clinical portion of the course, there is an additional fee for any dental assistants that wish to participate in ACLS. Also assistants that wish continuing education credit will be assessed a nominal fee.
Each participant will treat at least the number of patients that your state requires, generally this is twenty. You will be completely comfortable with and prepared to go back to your office and sedate and treat patients. This course is very well organized due primarily to the excellent quality of faculty and staff we have been able to secure.
Note: During the clinical portion of the course each participant is required to to bring all armamentarium/supplies required to treat patients. A list of materials that OHSU supplies and those you are required to bring may be downloaded from here.
These are long days ! The didactic days are eight or more hours each and the clinic days are at least ten and sometimes twelve hours. But they're probably the most fun you'll have in dentistry and it is a 'good tired' that you'll feel each day.

NOTE: As of October, 2007 the ADA Guidelines changed. One of the changes was the following sentence:

“The course director must certify the competency of participants upon satisfactory completion of training in each moderate sedation technique, including instruction, clinical experience and airway management.”

Each participant must be 100% clear that there is a possibility that if they do not perform satisfactorily during the course that I may not be able to write a letter to their state board stating that they are competent in parenteral moderate sedation and airway management. All participants will get the CE hours, but potentially one or more may not get a statement of competency from me, as course director. I have rarely been put in the position to not be able to certify competence of a course participant but it has happened in the past and may in the future.

The parenteral course is a 112 credit hour CE course.
The enteral course is a 32 credit hour CE course.

Tuition (parenteral): $12,500
Tuition (enteral - four didactic days only): $1,600

E-Mail Questions to Dr. Reed

Last updated November 10, 2011