Perioperative nursing: a special nursing specialty

The intraoperative phase of perioperative nursing practice is a special specialty, as it combines the nursing model and the collaborative model for specialization. As a nursing model, it focuses on the behavioral sciences, education, and nursing as a caring science. As a collaborative model, it requires skilled care with an additional knowledge base acquired from medicine and the behavioral and biological sciences. The nature of the operating room may distort the image, because although nurses work closely with other health care team members in diagnosing and treating patients, in this special specialty the scope of practice is uniquely nursing.