This paper seeks to explore the evolution of the Spanish nursing at the moment of change from vocational training to university education. In the beginning of the 1970s, an Act about General Education was issued by the Spanish government. This Act was the basis for important changes in the professional status of nursing, including important reforms of the curriculum and the position of the nurses, affecting especially to the situation of nursing teachers, that become university teachers. The discussion of these experiences will likely provide arguments to debate and learn within the Italian nursing profession for time to come.