Introduction: Few studies in nursing sciences focus on the hospital as a sociopolitical context of regulation. Objective: This article presents the results of an institutional ethnography of nursing work in a hospital environment. Method: The observational data, interviews and institutional documents collected were analyzed through the feminist lens of institutional ethnography (Smith, 1987, 2018). Results: The results, presented in the form of vignettes, provide three ways in which the hospital regulates the scope of practice of bedside nurses daily; self-regulation, invisible work and the institutional regulation. Discussion and Conclusion: The vignettes presented make it possible to identify points of tensions in bedside nurses’ scope of practice, which suggest that nurses directly perpetuate the relations of their own subordination, through their socialization in the hospital structure. Avenues for historical and feminist research are suggested to further study nursing in its socio-political context.