Social historical study, whose goals are: to characterize the practice areas of nurses from the National Cancer Institute, where there was a need to incorporate new knowledge in oncology and discuss the symbolic gains for nurses. The primary sources were oral and written documents, analyzed according to Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and scientific capital. It was evident that, in the 1980s, the position of the Institute in the field of cancer care in Brazil, made the nurses acquire new knowledge in the areas of cancer surgery, clinical oncology and bone marrow transplantation. The nursing competences and procedures were reorganized and new patient care routines were structured. It is concluded that the strategies to occupy this space were developed through the sharing of scientific knowledge, with visibility of the scientific capital in the field of oncology and highly specialized care, getting national recognition.
Nursing; History of nursing; Oncologic nursing; Professional practice