Introduction:
The author strongly supports the notion that exposure to various genres and sub-genres in the process of learning and teaching a foreign language, particularly English for Medical Purposes in its nursing variety, can enhance the quality of communication at either every-day, professional or academic levels of students whose major is nursing.

Aim:
The paper aims at providing the characteristics of various genre types which are present in Oxford for Careers course books: English for Nursing 1 and 2 and which are particularly useful for teaching and learning communication skills.

Material and methods:
The textbook is seen as an element that is integrated into the process of education, and it is identified as a genre that functions communicatively as a source of instruction and information about how people do things in society.

Results and discussion:
The analyzed course books were found to constitute a valuable source of written and visual genres and sub-genres with various communicative purposes including: handling in-group and out-group communication as well as managing academic, professional and every-day communication.

Conclusions:
The notion of a genre-based approach to English language teaching consists in recognizing and understanding various types of genres to which students are exposed in a classroom setting.