What do you do?

[emotional_she]

OK, I have been to a few other boards, so I figured I would come harass you all as well ? Would a few of you please tell me what your day to day duties are? And as I have not started school yet, please tell me what is a Gastroenterology Nurse? Do you work in hospitals or LTC places? Thanks all, any info would be greatly appreciated.

[moliuchick, RN]

I work in a GI center where we take about 20 patients a day. I only work Mon to Fri. 8 hours per day. No weekends or holidays.

This is a great job because I can provide one-on-one patient care. I don't have to handle 6-8 patients all at once like a lot of RNs in the hospital.

Our RNs rotate from the preop to procedure room to postop. Most pts in my place are healthy and they come in to do their colon screening for preventative measures. We do colonoscopy and endoscopy only, we don't handle ERCP or Bronscopy. That makes thing more simple.

We don't have to clean pts bottom or vomits. We do IVs, monitor pt in the procedure room, give conscious sedations and monitor vital sign in the recovery room. It gets stressful only if we have a lot of patients(like more than 25 in a day) besides that I think most of our nurses are pretty happy with their jobs.

[waterbury]

I work in GI in a hospital setting. I've also worked on the ward and 14 years in intensive care. I plan to stay in this job until I retire. It is great! No weekends or holidays. We do colonoscopies, endoscopies, ERCPS, EUS, sigmoidoscopies, feeding tube and stent placements. I did not take a cut in pay to come here. We don't take call but occasionally those of us who do ERCPS will be called and asked if we'd volunteer to come in for one. We are not pressured to do so. That happens about twice a year. As a RN, I am responsible for monitoring the patient during the exams. Except for flex sigs, we provide conscious sedation for the patient. We also educate the patient pre and post procedure, answer phone calls, answer consults. I highly recommend GI nursing.