[wannaknow]

Iam currently a first year nursing student and have a group presentation to do on men in nursing. I work in a rural hospital as a dietary aide and have yet to encounter a male nurse. Is this common?? This may be a rather naive question but I would appreciate it if any male nurses would let me in on the hidden male rule. Is it more common for men to want to work in big city hospitals or do I work in a hospital from the past. I'm hoping to find that I'am mistaken in this belief and perhaps make peoples views of rural hospitals a little more reasonable. Thanks !!!

[Spidey's mom]

I work in a small rural hospital and when I started there were 5 male RN's and one male LVN. There were 8 female RN's.

All but one of the male RN's has left for greener pastures.

We have one new male RN who used to be a traveler for us. And a male LVN.

steph

[gwenith]

Where is Ted when we need him. If you want to I can pop this thread over into the rural nursing forum. Are you picky about the country of origin? I have some good rural information in the Australasian forum............

[wannaknow]

Hello!!! Yes!!! I would appreciate any insight into this question. It would especially be appreciated if their was some way to have a few male objectives as to why this ratio appears to be so low. Do the female nurses outnumber the male nurses 10:1?? Do male nurses really prefer the greener pastures?? (even though I not quite sure I know what is meant by that). If you know of a better thread to post this on (rural) it would be a great asset. thank-you for the information!!!

[nialloh]

I am a male nurse in a north NJ hospital that I trained in. I work with 4 other men (we're still outnumbered). I checked the associated school of nursing as to male freshmen students, and it is 22 in a class of 58.

[sjoe]

It is largely a matter of statistics. Male nursing students comprise about 16% (the last I read) of nursing students, but by the time 5 years have passed after graduation, about 6% of nurses are male, as males leave the profession in much higher percentages than do females.

So if you have a hospital with only a few nurses, you will not likely find many male nurses. A large hospital with hundreds of nurses will have more.

Also a lot of guys want to go into higher-paid specialties, that may not exist in large numbers in rural areas--as higher pay itself usually does not--which is yet another reason Canada loses so many of its talented people to the US.

[Spidey's mom]

The male nurses I worked with who left, left for the greener pastures of specialization and then more money. One is a CCU nurse now.

Rural nursing is the exact opposite of specialization. You do a little of everything here . . med/surg, post-op, pre-op, recovery room, surgery, OB, LTC, wound care, ER. That is one of the draws to rural nursing. It is also one of the things that some people don't like.

The guys who left didn't have families. They wanted to get really good at one thing.

I'm tempted sometimes to do the same but I have a family with firm roots here.

steph

[ryaninmtv]

The hospital I trained at had only 4-5 males nurses (RN and LPN). If I later went to work at a large level one trauma center where there were more men nurses but the ratio was roughly the same. That's been my experience.

[ceecel.dee]

40 nurses on our roster (RN's and LPN's) and no males.

The one we had up until 3 years ago also left for greener pastures. How we miss him...one in a million!

[gwenith]

I have moved the thread to the rural nurses forum as that should get you more information from rural nurses.

This site is Australian but might contain some information for you.

http://www.crana.org.au/aboutus.html