The open house is Nov. 13 from noon until 2 p.m. for all staff members in the operating room.

Cmdr. Vivian Sersen, assistant department head, main operating room and perioperative clinical nurse specialist, said a perioperative nurse has a varying education background as a registered nurse with either an associate, diploma, bachelor, or master⁄doctorate degree.

A Navy nurse has to have a minimum of a bachelor of science degree in nursing to become an officer, Sersen said. The triservice perioperative clinical nurse specialist program is at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and is a two-year graduate program, she added.

‘‘Although not required to, perioperative nurses can get nationally certified and wear the title of Certified Nurse Operating Room (CNOR),” Sersen said.

Lt. Alayna Schwartz, a perioperative nurse at NNMC, said she and a team of volunteers have been planning for the open house for two months.

‘‘Promoting perioperative nursing as a subspecialty of our profession is critical to addressing the current nursing staff shortage of perioperative nurses and will help train and recruit the next generation of surgical nurses,” she said.

Sersen said she served as a surgical technician in the Navy for six years while enlisted and later became a perioperative nurse because of her desire to provide more patient-centered, compassionate care to patients undergoing surgery.

Schwartz said in previous nursing assignments, she cared for both post-operative patients on a medical-surgical nursing unit and for Caesarian section patients on a labor and delivery unit. It was through these experiences she first became interested in perioperative nursing, she said.

‘‘It was the collaborative, multi-disciplinary, patient-centered team approach to perioperative nursing that eventually guided me to my nursing role here in NNMC’s main operating room,” she said.

The open house runs in conjunction with Perioperative Nurse week, which begins Sunday and ends Nov. 14.

‘‘We will have common equipment and instruments demonstrated for your education as well as showcasing what makes the perioperative nurses special at NNMC,” Sersen said.

According to the Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses (AORN) Web site, in 1979 the AORN House of Delegates approved a resolution that AORN designate a day each year to promote consumer education and enhance public knowledge regarding the role of the perioperative nurse. Nov. 14 was designated ‘‘OR Nurse Day” and a few years later, the observation was expanded to a full week.

Since 1979, individual members, AORN chapters, hospitals and other medical facilities have organized special events and utilized other forms of publicity to help educate the public about the diverse roles performed by perioperative registered nurses. In 2007, OR Nurse Week was changed to Perioperative Nurse Week to more accurately reflect the broad spectrum of patient care services provided to surgical patients by perioperative nurses.