Nursing Specialty Spotlight: A Look at Endoscopy Nursing (Podcast)

Colorectal cancer screening is the first procedure most people think of when it comes to endoscopy. However, the procedure has many applications in gastroenterology, from placing stents to draining cysts and treating muscle disorders in the esophagus. And endoscopic nurses are key members of endoscopy teams.

“We can do a lot of different things endoscopically,” says Teresita Foliacci, MSN-Ed, RN, CGRN, Endoscopy Nurse Manager at Cleveland Clinic Weston Hospital. “Endoscopies continue to grow, the specialty continues to grow, and the technology continues to grow.”

Foliacci has been an endoscopy nurse for more than 30 years and currently serves as treasurer of the Society of Gastroenterology Nurses and Associates. In this episode of Cleveland Clinic’s Nurse Essentials podcast, she discusses the nursing specialty, including:

• A range of endoscopic procedures
• The necessary skillset, from troubleshooting equipment to reassuring patients with anxiety about procedures
• The nurse’s role in procedures with moderate sedation compared to anesthesia-supported cases
• Handling endoscopes and patient specimens
• Required competencies and training for endoscopy nurses

Click the podcast player above to listen to the episode now, or read on for a short, edited excerpt. Check out more Nurse Essentials episodes at my.clevelandclinic.org/podcasts/nurse-essentials or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast excerpt

Podcast host Carol Pehotsky, DNP, RN, NEA-BC: Talk us through a little bit about the handling of specimens and the handling of scopes. What do the rest of the roles look like from a nursing perspective?

Foliacci: So, you could have a nurse doing the tech role, and that person could be setting up the endoscope, checking everything, assisting the doctor and everything else. And then, handling the specimen, putting them in the specimen container, making sure that all that is done.

Then, the nurse who's the circulator needs to verify the specimens with the tech role – the person who, whether it's a nurse or a tech, verifies the specimens at the end of the case. I always tell them to just do a closed loop communication. Always do it. Always verify and repeat what they're giving you. “I'm closing the bottle.” “OK, I'm closing the bottle."

It sounds so redundant, but we're in this environment where people want to do everything super quick, and you really need to stop for a moment. I always tell nurses, if you're not sure, just stop and say, "OK I'm not sure what just happened here. I'm not sure how the specimen … let's stop.”

You need to be involved in what's going on. Whether you're the circulator, the tech – everybody's like a team and needs to be involved in that. Specimens are to be taken very seriously. I remember one of the doctors saying, "You invaded somebody's body to take a piece of them. You have to take care of it and make sure that it's done correctly."