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This article presents research work carried out in the course of a Masters degree in human and social sciences. It examines newly qualified nurses’ conceptions of health promotion. An inductive qualitative approach was used to explore the influence of work-study programs at the Haute École de Santé Arc (HES) on their professional training. In addition to semi-directed interviews, a comprehensive group interview was carried out in order to understand the difficulties faced by recently qualified nurses, and their self-conception. Our results show that these nurses refer intuitively to the global model of health, but continue to have trouble defining the concept of health promotion. Practical training seems to offer less professional preparation in this particular area. This is connected to the predominance of the biomedical model, and to the growing workload of nurses. We identify a socialization in acute care wards. The results show that academic training prepares nurses well for their role as a “reflective practitioner,” one who takes into account the complexity of the different factors determining health within a particular care situation. The teaching, however, remains very abstract. The analysis of our results shows that the professional training offered to nurses at the HES approaches questions of health promotion only tentatively and unsteadily. This is due to a number of conceptual, epistemic, organizational, and political reasons. A research project was described and carried out in the face of a number of obstacles. The project opens up a number of further research paths, which would allow for a deeper exploration of the difficulties and obstacles encountered, both in school and at work, and their influence on nursing students’ professional training.