Why Do Nurses Choose to Work in the Perioperative Field?

It is important for educators to know why nursing students choose perioperative nursing so that they can help these students become knowledgeable and perceptive professionals. The purpose of this study was to learn why perioperative nurses chose their specialty and why they chose to leave former positions. We used a Likert-type questionnaire with 26 statements and one open-ended question. Ninety of approximately 180 perioperative nursing students in Norway returned the questionnaire. The three most important reasons for choosing perioperative nursing were interest, being able to help patients, and being useful to others, and the three most important reasons for leaving former jobs were wanting more than working on typical patient care units, insufficient staff to provide high-quality care, and being responsible for too many patients.