The first public demonstration of the safe use of inhaled anesthesia (in the form of ether) was in 1846 at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston (Desai & Desai, 2015), and at the same hospital, a ward was established in 1873 for patients to recover from ether after surgery (Allen & Badgwell, 1996). In the 1940s, during the Second World War, the need for a recovery room was recognized after patients died of respiratory failure after surgery from the administration of anesthesia (American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses [ASPAN], 2016). Recovery rooms became a specialized area to monitor patients who were physically close to the operating room (OR) and to provide a place that offered safe and competent patient care. Recovery rooms were also needed to separate ward patients from experiencing the sights and sounds of postoperative vomiting and the pain of the patients recovering from anesthesia (Barone, Pablo, & Barone, 2003). Today, modern recovery rooms are called postanesthesia care units (PACUs).