Abstract: Objective To explore the effect of case-led seminar teaching pattern on surgical nursing teaching, and to accumulate experience for reforming nursing teaching mode and optimizing nursing teaching effect. Methods The subjects were divided into control group and experimental group with 65 people in each group. There was no significant difference in basic information between the two groups (all P > 0.05). The control group adopted traditional nursing teaching method, and conducted theoretical teaching and operation demonstration with teachers as the leading factor. The experimental group adopts case-led seminar teaching pattern. In the pre-class stage, the teachers integrate the teaching content, determine the topic of discussion, set specific scenarios, and compile typical teaching cases; in the classroom stage, teachers introduce the theme while students report and discuss; in post-class stage, teachers summarize and improve the teaching effect. At the end of the course, the scores of professional theory examination, critical thinking ability and autonomous learning ability were compared between the two groups. All the data were analyzed by SPSS 22.0. Results The test scores of the experimental group were better than those of the control group (P < 0.05). The scores of truth-seeking, analytical ability, critical thinking self-confidence, curiosity and cognitive maturity in the experimental group were higher than those in the control group (all P < 0.05). Conclusion Seminar teaching mode guided by cases can improve the theoretical examination results of surgical nursing of nursing students, and can promote their critical thinking ability and self-learning ability.