In its extreme form, the medical model with its concerns of diagnosis, treatment and cure, has been criticized for the narrow and unsatisfactory view it takes of health care. Proponents of nursing theory, in contrast, attempt to develop a conceptual structure which offers a more humanistic approach to patient care, where nurses attempt to move beyond the influences of medical values in the way that they work. This study indicates, however, that the medical model is occasionally compatible with nurses' values, and in certain settings can enhance and support nursing care. In other settings, however, the medical model, although in accord with nursing values, has little to offer practice, and indeed may have a negative effect on the development of alternative approaches to care.