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Despite a growing body of literature citing the importance of patient education, little evidence can be found to guide acute care nurses in determining the best time to provide that education. Timing of medication education is especially critical given concerns about patient safety and the frequency with which patients are discharged with multiple prescriptions. Timing of education is also important when considering patient readiness to learn (Kitchie, 2003). This lack of evidence was discovered as a result of a literature review conducted by staff nurse members of the Nursing Research Council (NRC) upon request of their Nursing Practice Council colleagues. Focused on patients' perceptions of the “best time” to learn about discharge medications, the staff nurse research team conducted 120 telephone interviews with adult elective surgical patients who had been discharged to home within the past two to five days and who were taking at least one regularly scheduled medication. The process of accruing diverse groups of patients, initially intended to increase representativeness of results, had the positive unexpected outcome of increasing staff nurses' awareness of and interest in the research process itself. What began as a study requested by a few nursing staff but resisted by a large number of both staff nurses and nurse managers, became for many of these professionals the first step on a journey from nursing focused on the tasks of patient care to nursing as a scholarly endeavor. This session will present results of the study plus will discuss strategies for successfully involving nurses in research participation.