[warmspirit]

Does Anyone Know If New Grad Rn's Are Eligible To Go Into This Specialty? Is Certification Required Outside Of Having A Degree In Nursing?

[GIRN]

It depends on what you mean about going into this specialty. If you mean can you as a new nurse perform nursing duties working for a department that does Outpatient Endoscopy, then yes. You'll have to be able to start IV's, do a nursing assessment, take a history, possibly give meds for Moderate Sedation, post op the patient post-procedure, etc. You can certainly learn how to do all of these things as a new nurse. I did.

[EricJRN]

Here's a link to the Certification Handbook for the CGRN specialty certification. Looks like you would need two years RN experience in the specialty before taking the exam.

http://www.abcgn.org/certification/handbook.cfm

[suzy253]

I just posted about obtaining a conscious sedation certificate and 'pop' here's the answer. thanks very much Eric!

[Luvbuble]

Originally Posted by prayingnurse

Does Anyone Know If New Grad Rn's Are Eligible To Go Into This Specialty? Is Certification Required Outside Of Having A Degree In Nursing?

Well, I have 6 months of Med/surg experience before getting into GI. I love GI, it is so much easier than Med/surg and the pts are not so sick and hard to handle. you always handle one pt at a time. I never get bored with my job. My only concern is that I am not maintaining my med/surg experience. I don't know a lot about medicine and I forget a lot of nursing skills. My suggestions to you is if you never want to work on the "floor" (med/surg), then just stick with GI. If you ever want to try something different then GI, please get at least one year of Med/surg experience and then try GI. I will highly recommend you to work full time GI and then get a PRN med/surg or rehab nursing job on the side so that you can still maintain your RN skills.
I regret not having more med/surg experience but I guess I got so stressed out at one point that I decided not to go back to Med/surg.
Anyway, I think GI is a very good specialty to go into and it is soooo doable for new grads. You will probably need to be ACLS certified eventually so that you can perform conscious sedation. It is not difficult at all. So don't let some experienced RN scare you.