Although nursing started with women's caring role as caring for wounded soldiers during wars, modern nursing started with the influence of Florence Nightingale's environmental theory and studies. Nightingale's work laid the foundations of professional nursing science. In our country, nursing education first started in the Constitutional Period after 1876. Nursing training courses were opened by Doctor Besim Ömer Pasha in the center of Hilal-i Ahmer in 1913, in Darülfünun between 1914-1915, and in Kadırga Birth Clinic in 1916. Safiye Hüseyin Elbi, who was the only Turkish nurse who carried the seriously injured from Çanakkale to Istanbul by ferry and served on the Reşit Paşa Hospital Ship, where surgeries were also performed, was one of the founders of the Red Crescent Nursing School opened in 1925. Esma Deniz İbrahim, who graduated from Admiral Bristol in 1924, continued her education at Columbia University and returned to Turkey in 1930. Like Safiye Hüseyin Elbi, she is among the founders of the Turkish Nurses Association (Turkish Nurses Association). The history of surgery, which started with the existence of human history, has often shown rapid developments, although it is sometimes stagnant from past to present. In the early 19th century, with the acceptance of operating room nursing as a field of study, the foundations of professional surgical nursing were laid. Today, the surgical nurse is a professional member of the profession who continues the care of the patient in a long process, which starts with the admission of the patient to the surgical clinic, and includes home care and rehabilitation during and after the surgery. Innovations in surgical technique, technology and informatics necessitate the constant change and development of surgical nurses. For this reason, nurse leaders, institutions and organizations and professional members who are responsible for the development of nursing science and practices should determine common strategies and put them into practice with appropriate regulations. In this review, the historical process of surgical nursing from past to present in relation to the history of Turkish nursing has been examined and an evaluation has been made for its future situation.