Nursing is understood as a social practice with various fields of action, among these, the Surgical Center is cited as a sector of high concentration of technical and scientific practice, in which the nurse coordinates and manages the entire process of care to be developed in the context of the hospital institution, including in the perioperative period. Five categories of analysis were found in the nurses' reports: Nursing performance in the Surgical Center scenario that describes the feelings and the ways in which nurses acted in the Surgical Center space; Perception of nurses about the management process in the Surgical Center: in it, nurses describe their work routine in the four regional hospitals surveyed and their actions, in the scope of management in the HS.