Integrated Nursing Curriculum in Brazil: A 13-Year Experience

Abstract

This article aims to describe the guiding principles and the operationalization of the integrated curriculum of the undergraduate course in Nursing of a public university in southern Brazil. This is an experience report by 3 curriculum managing professors and 2 graduate students in Nursing, who experience the pedagogical proposal. The analysis comprised official documents and 2 books on this integrated Nursing curriculum, which has been developed for 13 years; it is presented in 4 topics: guiding principles; curricular structure; role of the professor and student; and collegiate management. We present reflections on the curriculum, expressing the framework supporting the proposal and the developmental strategies adopted. This experience points out the dialogical movement of participants in this education action, i.e. professors and students, from a critical and innovative perspective of nurse’s training. We conclude that the pathway reported highlights key themes of the pedagogical proposal, such as inseparability of theory and practice; the diversification of teaching strategies; the successive close approaches between contents in interdisciplinary modules; learning evaluation from a two-dimensional perspective; early introduction of the student to different settings of professional practice; and the democratic and participatory management process in a collective construction. We hope to contribute to other institutions trying to develop an innovative methodology for nurse’s training.