The world increasingly relies on nurse scientists in order to safeguard person-centred quality of care and healthcare transformation. Opinions on what entails nursing science however, vary widely. Consequences of these discussions include a lack of defined career trajectories for academically-prepared nurses and a heightened resource competition within nursing and the broader medical field (see: Martini et al., 2023; van Oostveen et al., 2017). Research on the socio-historical context of nursing science reveals insights into the origins of these debates. Focusing on the establishment of the first Dutch nursing science faculty in the 1980s, our case study unravels the strategies that nurse scientists pursued to gain legitimacy among both nurses and academic peers. Applying the feminist concept of ‘caring power’ (Drenth & Haan, 1999), we observe that the challenges faced by these scientists were intricately tied to their efforts to professionalize a traditionally perceived feminine professional field (nursing), within male-dominated domains (i.e. medicine and academia). Early nurse theorists defined person-centered care as nursing’s defining element, endorsing qualitative research methods closely aligned to the behavioral sciences. Influential nurse leaders however, concerned about legitimacy amongst other healthcare academics, advocated for an empirical biomedical model (with perceived higher status). The eventual trajectory of the nursing science program in the Netherlands was unique. Students did not need nursing backgrounds for enrollment, and graduates could not register as nurses, resulting in a detachment from its person-centred origins. In this study we 1) show the continuous influence of gendered assumptions of nurses and nursing work on the establishment of nursing science as an academic discipline and 2) argue that defining nursing science is complex and requires an understanding on its national socio-historic roots. By doing so, we advance our understanding of the gendered mechanisms behind the establishment of a science of person-centred care. Consequently, we contribute to the reassessment of person-centered care's significance within the field of nursing science.