Hello AllNurses Family!

I now that there probably is a thread on this somewhere. Since it could be considerably older, I will ask this question again. I have an opportunity to interview for an endoscopy RN position at a local hospital. Difficult for a new grad to transition? Also, what are the major differences between endoscopy in the hospital vs. at an ambulatory surgery center? I am also going to interview for a ambulatory surgery position within the same hospital. Just not sure which one would be a more suitable choice. I know that I would enjoy both.

Thanks again for your responses and I hope everyone is well!

:)

First off, I will say that you will get people who say that you shouldn't work in a specialty place for your first job. That being said, I was hired onto a hospital Endoscopy Unit a year and a half ago. We do mostly outpatients that are too sick to be done in the office and inpatients. I'm still there and I LOVE it. Most of my fellow graduates have quit their first jobs already. I will admit you do lose a lot of nursing skills in Endo---but I still love it. I currently just do prep and recovery soon to start sedating for procedures (moderate sedation). I wanted to get a good feel of all the things that could go wrong in a procedure before doing them. I love doing IVs on every patient in prep, there is nothing like getting an IV on the "impossible" patient. Recovering is nice as well. Usually about 30 minutes per case. In prep we are 1:1 with the patients. Recovery is usually 1:2 but could be more on a busy day. It's nice because you can really talk to patients and family but if you have a bad egg you aren't stuck with them 12 hours. You will meet lots of different people. GI docs are pretty easy going as well. At our facility we do capsule endoscopy, manometry, Colonoscopies, EGDs/ endoscopic ultrasound, broncoscopies, flex sigs and ERCPs. I love my hours I work, 4 10 hours and we do take call--$$$$$. I love Endo and I'm not leaving!! Hope that helps you at all!

First off, I will say that you will get people who say that you shouldn't work in a specialty place for your first job. That being said, I was hired onto a hospital Endoscopy Unit a year and a half ago. We do mostly outpatients that are too sick to be done in the office and inpatients. I'm still there and I LOVE it. Most of my fellow graduates have quit their first jobs already. I will admit you do lose a lot of nursing skills in Endo---but I still love it. I currently just do prep and recovery soon to start sedating for procedures (moderate sedation). I wanted to get a good feel of all the things that could go wrong in a procedure before doing them. I love doing IVs on every patient in prep, there is nothing like getting an IV on the "impossible" patient. Recovering is nice as well. Usually about 30 minutes per case. In prep we are 1:1 with the patients. Recovery is usually 1:2 but could be more on a busy day. It's nice because you can really talk to patients and family but if you have a bad egg you aren't stuck with them 12 hours. You will meet lots of different people. GI docs are pretty easy going as well. At our facility we do capsule endoscopy, manometry, Colonoscopies, EGDs/ endoscopic ultrasound, broncoscopies, flex sigs and ERCPs. I love my hours I work, 4 10 hours and we do take call--$$$$$. I love Endo and I'm not leaving!! Hope that helps you at all!

There's just something 'wonderful' about that split second when you know you 'got in' that vein, more so when other people couldn't. Just...amazing. I never tired of that.

While Bramsey really loves her job you need to ask yourself if you like routine or variety. Endoscopy is very routine.

Please give us an update. Hope all is well. I'm going to be be a new grad nurse in a december and I am also interested in Endoscopy. Right now I don't feel like acute care is for me so I want to explore other avenues.

Personally, I started in the ER and while I loved it, I longed to be in a more controlled environment and more of a specialty. I thought it would be OR, but took a job at an ambulatory endoscopy center and fell in love with the subject material!

In ambulatory, the patients are mostly ASA I and IIs (low risk), and it can feel like a factory at times, though I suppose that's dependent upon the place. My responsibilities depended on where I was placed that day - pre-procedure phone calls where I would call the patient to confirm their PMH, medication, allergies, etc. and sometimes someone would slip through the cracks that were contraindicated (i.e. an ESRD patient on dialysis), I would do pre-procedure which would be prepping the patients for their procedures - confirming their NPO status, confirming their PMH, allergies, medications, blood glucose and HCG testing, getting them dressed, etc., or I'd do recovery in which I'd have up to 4 patients at a time - get a couple of sets of vitals, sit them up, give them juice and cookies, another set of vitals, take out their IV and get them dressed, have them wait to speak with the doctor. Each RN would rotate in the rooms as needed for injections through the endoscope channel (i.e. Epi, or tattooing). As CWONgal mentioned it is very routine, so if you do well with routine, you will like it.

The hospital route might be a little more exciting for you in the long run as they do more complicated procedures.

Thank you for replying! I'm a routine kind of person so Endoscopy sounds awesome to me!