Operating Room Nurse Day – November 14, 2025

History of Operating Room Nurse Day

From caring patients to preparing operating theatre to sterilising instruments to assisting the doctors and attending to the families of patients, operating room nurses sure have a lot on their hands.

Nursing is dated as far back as 300 A.D. and was first used to describe wet nurses. Nurses became a recognised profession when the demand for medical care increased, and of course, the doctors needed helping hands or assistants. When hospitals had to be part of monasteries, the nursing responsibilities were taken up by nuns and monks. Nursing took a different turn in the 19th century when Florence Nightingale introduced a new system for nursing and hospitals.
In 1949, the need for specialized nurses in operating rooms was recognised, leading to a new department under nursing.

Operating room nurses, also called perioperative nurses, are responsible for care before, during and after surgical operations. Over the years, with the advancement in surgical medicine, perioperative nurses now take on different roles. The circulating nurse takes care of the patients during the surgery, the instrument nurse is responsible for keeping instruments sterile, handing them over when the surgeon needs it and taking count to ensure the surgeon does not leave an instrument in the patient, and the perianesthesia nurse takes post-operative care of the patient after recovery. The RN First Assistant is the surgeon’s assistant who is very qualified in providing extended perioperative nursing care. These crucial roles of nurses were recognized in 1989 by the Iowa State Governor, and have been celebrated since then.