[Doctoring interunits in nursing program: 21 years building science].

The Doctoring Interunits in Nursing Program was the first created in Latin America and has titled 290 nurses until the second semester of 2004. This study presents some thesis characteristics upheld in the program, focusing the thematic areas and research methods used. The summaries of 287 theses supported until the first semester of 2004, have been analyzed. The most investigated fields up to now were: Children, Woman, Adult/ Elderly Health and Education. The quantitative research method predominated until the end of the 80's, since then an intense production of qualitative method researches started to occur. Still in the first decade of the program, the themes started to talk about the aspects that connect the practice of nursing to the political and social contexts, converging to the current program's paradigmatic axis: "Theoretical, philosophical, historical bases of knowledge and of the nursing practice."