A sheath at the end of an endoscope may be elastically expanded to clear an area within a body cavity during a medical procedure and retracted to within an envelope of the endoscope when not in use. In the expanded state, the sheath may provide sufficient mechanical strength to clear space for a camera or surgical tool, while also having sufficient pliability to mitigate impact on surrounding, sensitive tissue. In an example embodiment, the sheath may be an elastomeric sheath or the like coupled between portions of coaxial shafts of an endoscope, and the coaxial shafts can move relative to one another to deploy or retract the sheath by relatively tensioning and relaxing opposing ends of the sheath. In this manner, the sheath may be selectively expanded and retracted without exposed moving parts or sharp edges.
