Nurses working in gastroenterology: what should be the scope of practice?

摘要

In this issue of GIE, Verschuur et alJ have comprehensively reviewed the range of contemporary nursing practice in gastroenterology and made an assessment of the potential benefits of the activities currently performed. The article is heavily skewed toward analyzing nurse endoscopic activities, which is appropriate because midlevel nursing involvement in cognitive patient care has already become an established part of health deliver)' both in general and specialty medicine.2"4 The role of nurses performing endos-copy, on the other hand, is really a more charged issue because so much of current GI training, practice, and economics are dependent on providing endoscopic services. Any change in endoscopic practice has the potential to disrupt both the identity and pocketbooks of GI physicians; thus the Verschuur paper is timely and important.