Partnerships and new learning models to create the future perioperative nursing workforce.

To create new and sustainable approaches for development of the perioperative nursing workforce, perioperative nursing leaders at a hospital collaborated with administrators and faculty at a school of nursing to create an innovative learning model that reintroduces perioperative experiences to students in a nursing baccalaureate program. Key components of the initial approaches included an externship for nursing students and a revised internship for experienced nurses who wished to work in perioperative nursing. Project leaders then expanded the nursing student learning opportunity by adding two additional elective perioperative courses to the curriculum.