The study is a historical research whose aim was to historicize the singularity of the nursing work process in the city of Cuiabá/MT. The data were collected from primary and secondary sources. According to the analyzed data, nursing appeared with the attention and care for the sick, and volunteers, blacks and slaves were the ones who performed it. The first created institution was the Santa Casa de Misericórdia of Cuiabá. The religious, lay people and slaves performed nursing assistance on the basis of abnegation, friendliness, and godfathering. Successive important events such as the implementation of ABEn/MT, the Undergraduate Course in Nursing, and COREN/MT have marked the course of the nursing work, the three of which were linked to the business community in the health sector in the studied context.
history of nursing; nursing work; Hospital work