The objective of this article is to reflect on the contemporary nursing formal education process. It is a consideration subsidized by bibliographical research in articles published in the LILACS and SciIELO data-bases, using the following keywords: curriculum, teaching, education, and nursing. Thirty-nine articles were found, of which 25 were selected by means of reading the respective abstracts. Thereon the scientific reading method was used, organizing the articles into two topics: challenges in the course of nursing education in Brazil, and challenges and perspectives in reorienting the formal nursing education process. It should be observed that resistance to changes, shallow consideration about teaching, and distancing health care services, with reinforcement to the classic dichotomy between thinking and acting, present in a large portion of the teaching practice, are some of the challenges to be faced and overcome in order to improve the contemporary formal nursing education process.
Curriculum; Teaching; Education; Nurse-care