I'm a recent grad who just got colonoscopy privileges at a hospital. I can tell you that if you have any desire to do scopes you need to do your research about programs that offer you the training you need. Specifically you need to ask what kind of numbers you can get. If you don't get the training in residency don't expect to take a weekend course and be able to get priviliges. Even with decent numbers you still have to play politics. It really depends on the medical staff. At most hospitals the family medicine department is who decides what you are allowed to do. So in theory if you have numbers to back up your experience, you will hopefully have doctors on your side helping you out. At my hospital there is only a medicine department, so I had to play nice. You need to have a mininum of 50 scopes to even have a chance. Most hospitals have picked an arbituary number needed to in order to do them. This ranges from 100 to I've heard of up to 140. However; if you have close to this and your program director or somebody who had directly observed you is willing to state that you are competent you can probably fight these numbers, as there has been no real research showing that a doctor who does 100 scopes is better than a doctor who has done 90. These numbers were mostly picked out of the sky by GI academies who were trying to corner the market. The moral of the story is do your research. I interviewed at programs that offered scoping experience and would allow me to do them when I got out. A lot of programs will say they offer experience, but when you pin them down about numbers you can probably only get about 20 and you may not even get to touch the scope. There are some programs in Texas, Lousiana, SC, and one in Florida that I know of that can get you these numbers. Hope this helps.
