As the primary users of medical devices in direct patient care, stuff nurses should be competent with all medical devices which they used because any device improperly used can have serious consequences. Stuff nurses (n=350) working at two tertiary hospitals which combined licensed bed capacity of about 6000 beds in Hubei China were surveyed on how and what they had learned about the medical device which they used most-frequently and less-frequently in direct patient care. Results of the cross-sectional survey revealed the difficulties the participants had faced in learning of medical device knowledge. In the survey, we found that the main subjects stuff nurses learned are operation method, function, purpose and so on, the ways that stuff nurses study medical device knowledge are collogue guidance, reading user instruction, manufacturer guiding, and the main difficulty in education is complex instruction manual. And some advices were given on what and how nurses acquired education and training on medical devices. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.