Abstract: Uncovers the significance for nurses who were trained within the 1970s apprenticeship model in NZ hospitals, in their present understanding of themselves as nurses. Confirms that the 1970s heralded the beginning of the end of the apprenticeship system of nurse training, and that literature related to this era of general student nurse training is limited. Uses philosophical hermeneutics to guide interviews with 15 former student nurses who trained within the Auckland Hospital Board School of Nursing, and who reflect 40 years afterward, on how their apprenticeship training influenced the type of nurses they became.