[Validation of knowledge acquired from experience: opportunity or threat for nurses working in operating theatres?].

The law n 2002-73, dated 17 January 2002, of social modernisation, as it is called, reformed continuing professional training in France. It established a new system of professional certification, the validation of the knowledge acquired from experience (VAE in French). Since 2003, the Health Ministry has been studying a project to set up the VAE for health professions, among which, in particular, the profession of the state registered nurse working in operating theatres (IBODES in French). A state diploma sanctions the training enabling to practise this profession. In the future, the VAE will open a new access way to this diploma. Does this evolution constitute a threat for the profession, and a risk or an opportunity for individual people? The aim of this thesis is to characterise the impacts of the VAE on the IBODE profession and its current system of training. Two sociological and educational approaches are comforted by a field survey. A historical background of the IBODE profession develops the evolution of the caring practices, and presents the evolution of the training systems. A sociological approach enables to analyse the vocational focus of the IBODE on looking at functionalist theories. Therefore, the study enables to think that the VAE will have no consequences on the vocational focus of the IBODE. The VAE is then the object of an educational approach within the context of continuing professional training. The topics on which it could apply and the resistances it causes are studied. Some examples are taken within other Ministries. This study shows that the VAE involves an adaptation of training centres. The VAE constitutes a genuine opportunity for the IBODE profession. However, to manage its setting up in a delicate human context, the field professionals should be involved as early as possible in the reflection initiated by the Ministry.