OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to understand the working process of the nurse according to the perspective of professors of the Undergraduate Nursing Course at Universidade Federal de São Paulo. METHODS: Exploratory study with a qualitative approach, having 14 professors as its subjects; the focus group technique was chosen for data collection, and the material was analyzed according to the method of content analysis. RESULTS: The meaning of the nurses' working process comprised three categories: composition of the nurses' working process, differentials of the nurses' work when compared to other healthcare professionals and dichotomies of the nurses' working process in education. CONCLUSION: The meanings of this process were the group of the working processes: caring, managing, teaching and researching, whose working core is the process of caring. However, healthcare management was not evidenced by the focus group. The nurses' working process was considered complex and confusing.
Nurses, male; Nurses, female; Nurse's role; Education; Professional practice