Happy Perioperative Nurses Week!

Happy Perioperative Nurses Week to all you amazing perioperative nurses out there! This week, we celebrate us. The an incredible group of nurses who serve as patient advocates when our patients can’t advocate for themselves. The on-call teams working all hours of the day and night to care for patients in emergent situations. The most flexible nurses you’ll ever meet. I mean, who else can work Ortho in the morning and Urology in the afternoon?

Each year, we have a week dedicated to celebrating what we do. But when did it all begin? Allow me to give you a little history behind Perioperative Nurses Week!

How It All Started

The idea of a Perioperative Nurses Day originated in 1979 during the 26th annual AORN Congress in St. Louis, MO. At the time, the U.S. Department of Health had determined that surgical technologists could perform the role of the circulating nurse in addition to scrubbing.

To reinforce the belief that circulating is a nursing role, AORN’s House of Delegates introduced - and passed - a motion to educate the public about the role of operating room nurses and the essential ways we serve surgical patients. The very first OR Nurse Day was held on November 14, 1979. It was such a successful campaign that, at the 1980 Congress in Atlanta, GA, members voted to make OR Nurse Day an annual observance every November 14th.

From a Day to a Week

In 1990, during Congress, members voted to expand OR Nurse Day into OR Nurse Week. The goal was to create even more opportunities for education and community events that highlight the vital role nurses play in surgery and in the OR environment.

That same year, AORN officially changed its name to the Association of PeriOperative Registered Nurses. The new name carried with it a shift in how the week was recognized. In 2000, the week that included November 14th became known as Perioperative Nurses Week, and this is the celebration we know today.

Why We Celebrate

What began as OR Nurse Day evolved into Perioperative Nurses Week, but the purpose of the recognition remains the same:

To educate others and raise awareness about our profession, our specialty, and our ongoing responsibility to advocate for and deliver high-quality, patient-focused care to those undergoing surgical procedures.

Cheers to You!

To all the Perioperative Nurses out there, THANK YOU for everything you do. Your skill, flexibility, dedication, and advocacy make surgical care safer and stronger every single day.

Keep up the great work,

Lindsey