Abstract: The educational framework used to teach pharmacology to nurses by one university in New Zealand is presented, along with early findings on the effectiveness of this approach. Nurse prescribing is relatively new in New Zealand and is related to the expanding roles and opportunities for nurses in health care. Opposition to nurse prescribing in New Zealand has been marked and often this has been linked to concerns over patient safety with the implication that nurses could not be adequately prepared for safe prescribing.