The scope of this paper is to take a retrospective look at the professional role of the nurse in the Brazilian Unified Health System and understand the meaning of their social practice in this field of discussions and theoretical-practical meanings. The Grounded Theory was used as a methodological reference and interviews were the technique for data collection, conducted between May and December of 2007, with 35 health professionals and others. The codification and data analysis revealed that the Unified Health System and especially the Family Health Strategy, should be considered facilitating and stimulating strategies of the process of expansion and consolidation of nursing care as a social entrepreneurial practice, since they pave the way to a new approach in community intervention, through seeing the human being as a multi-dimensional and singular being, inserted in a real and concrete context.
Nurse's role; Community health nursing; Public health; Unified Health System; Family Health Program