In Spain, the introduction of the new Diploma in Nursing in 1977 saw the role of nurses shifting from that of medical assistants with technical skills to being independent members of the healthcare team with specific responsibility for providing professional nursing care. Here, we analyse the evolution of the nursing profession in Spain following the transfer of nurse education to universities, doing so through interviews with the first generation of academic tutors. This was a qualitative study using the method of analytic induction and based on the principles of grounded theory. Participants were selected by means of theoretical sampling and then underwent in-depth interviews. Steps were taken to ensure the credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability of data. The main conclusion of the analysis is that there is a gap between a theoretical framework borrowed from the Anglo-American context and a nursing practice that, in Spain, has traditionally prioritised the application of technical procedures, a role akin to that of a medical assistant. It is argued that a key factor underlying the way in which nursing in Spain has evolved in recent decades is the lack of conceptual clarity regarding what the role of the professional nurse might actually entail in practice.