American family physician
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Many patients require sedation during diagnostic or therapeutic procedures. Ideally, procedural sedation minimizes the patient's awareness and discomfort while maintaining the patient's safety. Appropriate monitoring by trained personnel is the key to successful procedural sedation. ⋯ Common sedative agents include etomidate, ketamine, fentanyl, and midazolam. These have become the agents of choice for procedural sedation because of their ease of use, predictable action, and excellent safety profiles. All patients requiring procedural sedation should be monitored by qualified staff at the bedside until they have recovered to an age-appropriate baseline mental status and function.