Discussions of the impact of technological innovation on nursing practices have focused on how technology enhances nursing professional abilities to deliver quality nursing care, on one hand, and the sacrifice of artistic and humanistic aspects of nursing on the other. The debate highlights the fundamental incompatibilities between technology and nursing. Instead of examining the interplay of technology and nursing with the view of technological optimism and romanaticism, the authors apply a social history of technology perspective and emphasize that technology is socially constructed and historically contingent. The technological system and its dissemination produce and reproduce the enduring patterns of power relations in areas such as gender, class and self-identity. This article discusses medical technology in the context of the nursing practice in an attempt to reveal the interplay between technology and nursing with four major themes including the transformation of the ownership of technology, the transformation of nurses' professional identity, the transformation of the relationship between physicians and nurses, and the transformation of the nursing labor process. Implications for nursing practice and directions for future research are suggested.