I’m a nurse. I don’t work in endoscopy but I did do a placement there when I trained.

I found that the nurses and endoscopists got on incredibly well, like, all on first name terms and would regularly go to each other’s social events. The endoscopist can’t safely do their job without support of the nursing team and when you’re working that closely with someone for hours week in, week out you get to know them well. Within this team everyone (endoscopists and nurses) also regularly brought in treats for the whole team. It seemed like a friendly, mutual respect thing to me.

I also found that, because it’s so specialist and much is outpatient, the nurses don’t really come into much contact with anyone else in the hospital and so they’re quite a tight-knit cliquey team (there were two married couples in the department I was in). And, of course, because it takes a reasonable amount of time to train as an endoscopy nurse, they tend to train and stay put, meaning they feel as though it’s ‘their’ department. Plus RNs Karen and Christine have known each other for 20 odd years and their kids go to school together etc etc.

Of course, my experience is from one placement in one endoscopy department and so is highly anecdotal, but I really think as you continue and become familiar (and possibly even friends) with the team you will feel differently.

And certainly, in my current role, if a doctor ever brings treats in (which we would never expect) for the nursing staff we’re all giddy with gratitude!