GI RN pay scales and on call staffing concerns

[Endo RN]

I am an RN in a hospital-based GI lab. At this facility RN's in GI lab are paid on a lower pay scale because they do not do "bedside nursing".....however, PACU and OR RN's are paid on a higher pay scale (same as floor RN's). This does not seem fair to me. Is this common to have different pay scales for GI RN's? Also, RN's take call weeknights 5pm til 7am and Sat/ Sun 5pm til 7am by ourselves. We are not on-call with another tech/ RN. We are responsible for sedating and assisting the doctor. This seems unsafe to me and not allowed according to IL state laws. Does anyone have any advice or similar circumstances with their facility?

[RAYLO!]

really this is so bogus! as a gi nurse you and i both know its a great amount of work.. sedating pt.s in a hospital, can be hard,ie: drug addicts, high tolerance, etc.. then theres the charting.. at least crna.. pt are more controlled... yes i believe they are screwing ya....:angryfire

[LolaNY]

I am outraged that they pay GI Lab nurses LESS at your hospital! GI RN's are highly skilled & highly trained. I'm not sure what your responsibilities are in your hospital. Are you just medicating the patient during the procedure? Is there a tech assisting the doctor with cautery, polypectomy, biopsies? In our lab, the RN does everything.

As far as your on call procedures...we need 2 people in our rooms as the RN monitoring conscious sedation is not supposed to be doing anything else. I'm in NY.

[Endo RN]

The more I hear about other hospitals, the more disgusted I am that I did take a pay cut. Being in the GI lab comes with huge liabilities/ responsibilties. At our facility we sedate for colons, EGDs, EUS, ERCP, liver biopsy, bronchoscopy, PEGS etc.... Some of the longer procedures (1-2 hours) can require very high doses of sedative. In our exam rooms, we currently are usually the only ones in the room with the doc. We are supposed to call for help if needed to assist with polypectomies/ biopsies...etc. But on call....we are on our own. Very Scary! These are usually the chronic patients that come in with a variceal bleed....that need higher doses of meds and are far from cooperative. Its alot of responsibilty to sedate, maintain airway/ vitals, and assist the doctor. I also have many years experience as a critical care RN. I have never felt that I should be paid more than a floor nurse (each have there own stresses)....but to be paid less is just downright insulting. I just wanted to make sure that this was not "normal"....I was told it was because of working less weekends....less holidays....and that the hospital was trying to retain RN's at the bedside.

[Chuckie]

Where is your union that is bad I wouldn't do it. All RN's get paid the same in our hospital depending on years of experience we get $4.oo per hour for call pay and when we get called in we get paid for 4 hours of overtime even if the procedure is cancelled. We are required to have one RN and one tech in all procedures.

The problem we are experiencing now is scope of practice of our Tech. For the last ten years we have had OR techs in procedures and now all of a sudden they are not allowed to inject or cut tissue which means they are not allowed to inject epi or snare.

Another issue is RN's doing the cut on PEGS we were allowed to for over ten years now all of a sudden we are not.