[Care in health care and in nurses' informal learning practices]

in everyday practice, nurses combine both the care and the cure.

changes in the hospital environment alter care practices. Nurses adapt by conducting informal learning every day to be competent in professional situations. The way they do that approximate their way to have concern for the other, to take care of the patient in care practices.

this article aims to show the existing similarities between the care of the caregiver to a patient and the care of the caregiver to another caregiver, i.e. a peer, in informal learning in the workplace.

qualitative research of comprehensive type with a population sample of thirty nurses in two fields of inquiry, a hospital and a clinic. Two tools are used: a log collecting nurses learning processes day by day for six weeks and two interviews, one to introduce the log filling instructions and the other to facilitate the understanding of written texts. On that occasion, the care is mentioned. The results highlight the similarities between the care in caregiving activities and in learning processes, in terms of designing of care and purpose, of position in considering the concern for others and their vulnerability.

the care is transverse in nursing practice, whether in care or learning process.