The ESEnfSM, owned by Portuguese Province of the Missionaries of Our Lady Franciscan, is a prestigious school and an educational and very solid training project, with more than half a century of history in the service of education in nursing, inspired by the values, principles and practices the congregation to which he belongs. From the need to support a more solid scientific basis nursing activities, the Province decided to organize, in 1949, a particular course of nursing practice at the Hospital of Santa Maria, limited only to the sisters of the Congregation. However, it would not be granted the necessary legal authorization for professional practice by the Congregation requested the Government authorization for the creation of the Santa Maria Nursing, reserved to the Franciscan and students of the schools belonging to the same religious entity, with a number maximum of twenty annual subscriptions.