Transition to Perioperative Specialty Practice: A Solution to RN Outward Migration

Frontline nurses are exiting the workforce, fueling a crisis in health care. Years of chronic staffing shortages, trauma experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and faculty shortages resulting in lessened ability to produce new nurses are complicating the ability of hospitals and health systems to provide high-quality care at a time when hundreds of thousands of nurses are predicted to leave the profession. A solution to this problem, which may produce internal "churn," can also create the opportunity for an internal pipeline of transition to specialty practice-recovering nurses who otherwise might be lost. An influx of experienced nurses to the perioperative setting from medical/surgical, telemetry, emergency departments, and intensive care units provides a unique opportunity to fill critical vacancies for a department that traditionally hires less experienced nurses and has expected vacancies due to nurses of retirement age leaving. Key components of a transition to practice arising from the desire to leave stressful, traumatic bedside roles and seek "safer" and perceived less stressful clinical positions involve assessing and promoting resilience and demonstrating self-efficacy. Creating the right environment and offering an evidence-based training opportunity for experienced nurses in a specialty transition to practice can leverage years of experience and skill, support new skill acquisition, stem outward migration of nurses, and potentially salvage the careers of nurses who have contributed to the profession.