Theatre nursing (Part 1).

Whilst discussing the need to increase the number of theatre nurses, Professor Roger Dyson claimed that nurses overtly tended to devalue theatre work as not being 'real nursing'. Many nurses who work outside theatre may support this. Sadly, this may be further supported by theatre nurses themselves. Such statements as 'I know I'm a good nurse because I can scrub for anything' is a comment which has been made to this author on more than one occasion. As Casey states, the conventional image of nurses in theatre is less about nursing and more about technical assistance with operating procedures.