The use of medicinal plants as a therapeutical resource: from the influences of the professional formation to the ethical and legal implications of its applicability as an extension of nursing care practice.

This qualitative research aimed to analyze the biomedical influence in the context of nurses' formation and professional activities; to reflect about ethical and legal implications of using medicinal plants in nursing care; to argue about the need to configure and delimit this resource as a legitimate instrument for expanding nursing care practice. We used the creative-sensible method and developed dynamics with a group of nurses to produce data, analyzed in the categories "the biomedical influence in the academic-professional orientation of nursing" and "ethical and legal implications in the applicability of medicinal plants in care". Results indicated the need to advance in studies on the nursing diagnosis that implies the prescription of medicinal plants, so that the client is well taken care of by nurses, thus legitimizing it as an extension of their professional practice. Not as an exclusive territory, but as shared and interdisciplinary health care action.