Nursing knowledge is epistemologically characterized as practical knowledge, which due to the difficulty in explaining verbally cannot be formalized or transmitted, only demonstrated. This practical reflective knowledge exists in the professional action, in an implicit and personal fashion, and is developed in a complex, uncertain reality saturated with values. In formal nursing education, this practical knowledge should orient planning and curricular action. But beyond asking how to improve the "application" of the practice of such knowledge in the classroom, we should seek methods in which the students comprehend how specialist nurses are able to deal with the undetermined zones of their practice. We present generalities concerning concepts that are alternative to the dominant technical vision of the hierarchical relationship between technical knowledge and educational or care-based practice. As a strategy that may contribute to this intention and as a foundation of the curriculum, we present the development of the practicum in the initial formal education of nurses.
Nursing education; Nursing care; Knowledge