Objective: to understand the nurse professional identity from a vygotskian perspective and to understand its implications in the education process of nursing students.
Methods: theoretical-reflexive study, based on the historical-cultural approach of Lev Seminovich Vigotski.
Results: the perspective of human cultural development defended by Vigotski can support an understanding of nurse professional identity as a complex psychological construction, which takes into account both the elements of the historical-cultural context that circumscribes the profession and the subject, as well as the set of psychological functions, developed by the subject in personal and professional relationships. Final considerations: the professional identity formation necessarily passes through the social relations that take place in formative process and it places the nursing professor in relief in the conduct of learning, which results not only in appropriations of attributes and codes, but also in students psychological development.