Male Nurses

Male nurse is "gay?" Really, is it 1950? When you research the history of nursing you will find it was actually a profession started by men on the battlefield. Are male nurses looked down on? Well it depends on the male nurse. Do they come to work on time? Do they take care of their patients? Will they jump in and help out in a pinch? Oh WAIT! That is the criteria I use for ALL my co-workers to decide if they are good or not, lol.

Listen, male/female, heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual, white/black/yellow/brown or FREAKING PURPLE, I don't care what you are, so long as you take care of your patients.

As far as financially, I am working when many people are not. I am making my house payment, when many people cannot. If you want numbers, search the site there are many threads that will tell you what you can expect to make in nursing in your particular area of the country.

As far as your friends go, 20 years from now you will look back and say, What the heck did I even care WHAT they thought anyway?

They are a small but growing percentage of the nursing field. Don't let others stop you from your goal of being a nurse if that is what you truly want to do. Nursing doesn't have a gender, in fact, nurses were historically male.

You shouldn't have any issues being hired as a male. That is discrimination, which in that case you can take legal action.

Your fiance doesn't seem supportive of you. Personally, it sounds like she has issues with how others would see you as a nurse. That to me is concerning. Ideally your spouse should support you in your goals. Perhaps she doesn't understand modern nursing. You both may want to explore the field together and attend some info nights at local universities.

Re-read op's post, hon. I think you mis-read "friends." OP is only 17

Just to kind of put things into perspective .....

I'm a male RN with my BSN
I work on an Adult Intermediate (Stepdown) unit w/ trach-vents, vascular, and traumas in a level 1 trauma center
I make more money than many or most of my friends in other fields, have no problems paying my bills at this time, am insured by all facets, and drive a brand new (and nice) car.
I have no current fear of losing my job like every other person I speak with
I have not yet seen a decline in the patient #'s
I don't get treated differently from patients EXCEPT for the EXTREME case of people not wishing to have a male nurse in when they use the restroom.

You'll learn this in school, but you're there to help. You're there to make them better. That being said, the patients know this (for the most part) and respect it. I actually receive a bit more respect from some of my patients BECAUSE I'm a male.

There's a population of gay males in the nursing field, but quite honestly what job DOESN'T have this subset? The only field that you'll not have gay males / females is in the armed forces, and that will probably be changing soon. This also doesn't STOP them from joining, they just can't act on it.

In short, tell your friends to shut the h**l up. You'll see stuff that would absolutely make their heads spin (not kidding). Not everybody can be a nurse and deal with the smells and sites let alone the mental images of what it is to be a nurse. If you honestly want to do this, man up, join a program, and never look back. You'll be happy you did!

Dude, don't sweat it, seriously.

1) There's nothing "gay" about being a male nurse, if I understand your usage of the term. I don't think there's anything "unmanly" about being a nurse. I was a firefighter before becoming an RN, and I can tell you that nursing has offered me just as much if not more in terms of excitement, variety, technology, and working in a fast paced environment where you have to be able to think on your feet under pressure. Thus far nursing has been the greatest challenge, and greatest privilege, of my life.

Yeah, there are gay men in nursing. There are also gay men in law enforcement, fire/rescue, medicine, teaching, etc. I don't think there are significantly more gay men in nursing then there are in any other profession. Almost all of the other male nurses I know well are straight, and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. That stereotype is rarely an issue, and if it is where you live then you need to simply rise above it. Someone's sexual orientation has no more bearing on their job performance than their gender does.

2) Don't worry about being able to make ends meet as a registered nurse. Nurses are paid very well, and while salaries vary from place to place, they are generally well above your cost of living. There are nurses in the Bay Area who make over $100,000 a year. Nurse anesthetists start at as much as $160,000 a year and can end up making as much as a physician.

3) Regarding how common male nurses are, I recently attending a Men in Nursing conference in Monterey (that's right, we have our own conferences) and learned the latest numbers. Nationally men still only account for about 7% of registered nurses, but in California 10% of RNs are men. Enrollment of men in nursing education programs in California is up also, around 18%. You can expect those number to grow even more in the future.

4) It's very rare that my being a man has negatively affected the way patients interact with me. I can only think of two times that a patient has asked to have a female nurse instead, and both times it was due to cultural beliefs. Most of the time my patients don't treat me any different than my female peers, and occasionally I'll have a patient that even prefers to have a male nurse.

5) You are not less likely to get hired as a man, nor are you more likely to get hired. That would be illegal. If anything hospitals would probably like to be able to hire more men in order to promote diversity.

Please don't let anyone discourage you from choosing nursing as a career because you are a man! It's an awesome career that offers you countless pathways to find what will make you the most happy.

You've put a lot of information in this very short post so let me see where I can get started.

First of all let me introduce myself. My name is Chris, I'm a CNA and nursing student and I also happen to be male. As a CNA I can think of maybe half a dozen patients (men or women) who have refused to have me care for them because I was a guy. It didn't bother me because its really about the patients and its not about me, so if they happen to be more comfortable with a female then so be it. To be honest, I've had more patients who are actually happy that I'm a guy taking care of them, this includes younger guys who might be embarrassed to have a female CNA or RN or even the little old ladies who like "a big strong guy" to help them ambulate, get boosted up in the bed or someone to just take a minute to hold their hands (you'd be surprised how often the little old ladies ask for "that fella with the gentle hands".) Most patients really don't care about your gender one way or another as long as you are kind and competent with your care.

Are we (as men) looked at differently from patients? Yes and no, yes because I think that there is a different dynamic between how male and female nurses interact with their patients but I think that's more about gender and less about nursing and no because our patients see both a male and a female nurse as a nurse just like we see male and female teachers as teachers. I think that the reason why we feel like their is such a huge stress on gender in nursing is because of portrayals of nursing in the media (mostly medical dramas) which gives people the impression that male nurses are either gay or med. school flunkies which is not the case at all. A person's sexual orientation is of no consequence to their profession and has no baring on how well they perform their job so I don't really see why we feel the need to discuss it but... It has been my experience that out of all the male nurses I have worked with (probably between 10 - 15 as of yet) I think that only two of them weren't married with children so it just goes to show you that the antiquated myth that "all male nurses are gay" is definitely bunk.

As for not being hired for because your a guy that's not the case at all, being a guy is not going to guarantee you getting a job but it definitely won't hurt your chances of getting one either (since we are still considered a minority in the nursing profession after all.) Financially, I don't believe that being a nurse ever made anyone a billionaire (I could be wrong) but it's a financially sound career with limitless options for specialization and advancement so whoever told you that you will "never make any money in nursing" needs to get their head out of their bums and do a little research.

And for the statement from your "friends" who say that "nursing is gay". I would suggest that they go shadow an ER nurse for a while and watch what an ER nurse does in the middle of a bloody trauma or an ICU nurse who is carefully monitoring a critical patient with numerous, complicated instruments and using a slew of powerful medications to keep this person alive. This "nursing is gay" bit is really old and frankly its tired. Honestly, who cares what some ignorant group of pricks say? Dude if you want to be a nurse then do what you have to do to become a nurse! Look into what nurses do and go to college to become a nurse if that's what you want. Oh and in five years or so when you run into one of your "buddies" at Home Depot doing their "manly job" of selling toilet bowls or plywood tell them how happy you are now and explain that your shopping for stuff for your new house that your "gay job as a nurse" paid for and wish them good health.

!Chris

DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!


Besides, a 'mail nurse'? Gay? Doesn't make money? Please just stay wherever you're at.

I had a male friend that waned to be a nurse, and I tought that was Awesome, for the main reason that many 'men' think that it's just a female field when it's not. When I know a guy is going for nursing, I see him different from the rest, I see them with pride since it takes compassion, care and all the rest of the things that are only expected from females so when it's coming from a male, you're not being looked down, you're actually being looked with respect and pride, so don't let your friend's talk you down, they won't be the ones paying your bills, your career choice will, so if you're interested in nursing, GO FOR IT,
Good Luck!

I have gay friends, does that count? I will give the OP a little break at 17. However, if your 17 year old friends tell you something definitive about the adult world, I would assume the information to be false unless proven otherwise.