[The nurse and the construction of professional autonomy in the care process]

This article analyses some factors that interfere in the quality of nursing practice, focusing, particularly on the professional nursing practice. It brings about a critical approach of this acting, based on the assumption that the care process is the essence of the nursing work. The nurse's professional autonomy is considered as an important issue to be renewed by a new scientific paradigm, that takes into consideration the humanistic side of health care. Based on a qualitative approach, some important issues are considered, related to the labor process in an universitary public hospital. The article concludes by proposing a new attitude, which can be both more committed to the production of health and more connected to a social dimension.