Perioperative nursing – exclusive or inclusive?

Abstract

Perioperative nursing is my specialty area of practice. My practice has included instrument and circulating nurse, unit manager, surgeons’ assistant and predominantly education in both hospital and tertiary settings. While working for surgeons I was an instrument nurse, practice nurse and surgeon’s assistant. I have experienced, and thus believe, that perioperative practice is about the comprehensive care of patients during their entire perioperative journey. The term ‘perioperative’ evolved from the terms used for the work of nurses in operating rooms and operating suites. The prefix ‘peri’ was used to convey the concept that operating room nurses undertook more than just the intra-operative role – they were involved in the pre-operative, intra-operative and post-operative phases of the patient’s surgical experience. Thus was established a framework which allowed an expansion of, and a vision for, the future practice of perioperative nurses with the development of standards for practice and postgraduate education for perioperative practice. However, perioperative nursing is very much a multidimensional area of practice that has evolved as models of perioperative patient care, surgery, anaesthetics and their complexity, techniques and equipment have evolved. Within the broad perioperative area there are numerous nursing roles. However, they do not all necessarily identify as being under a singular ‘perioperative’ umbrella and this is largely due to how the roles evolved. Thus the question: is perioperative nursing exclusive, in that it identifies with only one facet of the pre-operative, intra-operative and post-operative phases of the patient’s surgical experience? Or is it inclusive, in that nurses who work in any of these phases consider themselves perioperative nurses with a common aim to advance safe, quality perioperative nursing care for Australians?