Group work: experiences of nursing students

This study aims at understanding the meaning attributed by undergraduate nursing students to the experience of group/team work. Based on the phenomenological framework. Individual interviews were conducted with nine students from the fourth year of the undergraduate program at the University of S?o Paulo at the Ribeir?o Preto College of Nursing. Later, these were analyzed according to Martins and Bicudo (1989). The following categories emerged: group work focused on subjects; group work experienced in the classroom; group work: relationship among students and among students and teachers; group work in the training field; are students prepared for group work? By taking into account that professional practice in healthcare has shown the need to be interdisciplinary and that academic education presents gaps, concerning the practice of group work, re-thinking about such education becomes relevant, since it will recover the understanding of complexity in human relations involving their political, institutional and interpersonal dimensions.