What are some jobs for a male nurse other than bedside care on med/surg floor?

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Hi, about to graduate and was wondering what would be some employment ideas for a male nurse other than being a bedside nurse on a medsurg floor at the hospital? Thank you to all who respond... :)

I just read through all the posts wow! I am headed into my last semester of school (my wife and I both), and am getting anxious about jobs. I hope to get a job in the psychiatric field. Would love to work correctional nursing in a youth or adult facility! Being a larger male and interested in psych I hope this is the field for me. It all depends what you are interested in. The only barriers in nursing are the ones you set!

Get ready. Psych is an even tougher job to get now than a "regular" acute care job. Keep your options open. It's been 18 months since I got licensed and still looking. One class left to finish my RN-BSN program. Maybe if you are coming directly from a BSN or MSN program you will be better off.

Specializes in Anesthesia, ICU, PCU.

With all due respect to psychiatric nursing, I truly do not know how they do it. The bizarre behaviors, the delusions/confusion, the inevitable agitation, the potential for violent behavior... While every nurse is a psych nurse to some degree, I can't imagine wanting to expose yourself to this stuff exclusively. I have been successful with my psych patients as a bedside nurse, however I definitely dread getting them. It was with a psych patient that I had the official worst day of my nursing career.

There was one time, when I was still a nursing assistant in my BSN program, I was assigned to a 1:1 in 4pt locked restraints. Of course I was prioritized as the one to cover this patient because I'm a male, and somehow my chest hair and testosterone would keep the patient's psychosis at bay as he was literally tied down at every limb.

I knew it was gonna be a bad shift when the guy I was relieving basically sprinted down the hall after I sat down. Nobody told me what the patient's diagnosis was, only that he was on his way to prison after treatment. I googled his name in my break and found multiple previous arrests and incarcerations for aggravated assault, attempted homicide, and illegal possession of firearms - but that was after 5 hours of him screaming and thrashing in the bed so hard I thought it was going to break, lunging and spitting at the MD trying to assess him, berating and threatening me worse than I'd ever known possible, being sexually inappropriate towards me and other staff, and somehow crapping into his hand and spreading it all over his face (I was instructed by the nurse not to approach the bed, he was definitely stronger and bulkier than me, and besides I didn't have the key to unlock the restraints and subsequently tighten them).

I exhausted every ounce of positive energy, therapeutic communication, de-escalation, firmness, redirection, and even appeasement on this guy to no avail. Before this I had always been successful with keeping my 1:1s calm and safe. Security was called to help unlock him and three guards plus a male CNA came in to clean him up while he thrashed and spit and bit at and threatened them. Later the nurse, who was rude and inattentive to the patient (can't blame her for not wanting to be near him), chewed me out for trying to feed him his lunch which of course ended up spilled on the floor because the dude grabbed hold of the table and jammed it into my body. At that point I realized I didn't care about this guy at all. Any compassion that drove me into nursing was out the window. Even to this day, judge me if you must, I hope he's getting what he deserves in prison. Needless to say after 8.5 hours I was done, but it took an enormous toll on me mentally.

I was raised Roman Catholic, but sort of strayed away like many of us do. I hadn't really independently sought out Bible lessons since 8th grade - however this day I was reading the Bible during my shift. I was trying to find hope for myself, hope for my career in nursing, hope for the patient, just hope for life in general if this is what humanity can become. I firmly believed at that point that I was completely done with nursing.

I hadn't been so emotional during/after a shift since the death of my father 4 years prior. After the shift was done I decided I had to go to the cemetery to visit my grandfather and father (hadn't actually been there since my dad was buried, it was a complicated grieving process), at which point I'm not ashamed to admit I cried pretty significantly. It was the first time since his funeral that I'd cried and TBH it was such a relieving feeling to open up the exhaust valve on so many emotions that had built up long and short term.

Because of this experience you will never find me in psych or correctional. I wouldn't wish that career path on my worst enemy.

With all due respect to psychiatric nursing, I truly do not know how they do it. The bizarre behaviors, the delusions/confusion, the inevitable agitation, the potential for violent behavior... While every nurse is a psych nurse to some degree, I can't imagine wanting to expose yourself to this stuff exclusively.

Because of this experience you will never find me in psych or correctional. I wouldn't wish that career path on my worst enemy.

Love the chest hair and testosterone comment. Maybe I haven't gotten a job because I don't have a hairy chest! Now on to the serious part of my response...

Getting a psych patient in an acute care med/surg unit is far worse than having one in a locked facility where he will be restrained and sedated if necessary, without wasting time. Sounds like the patient you had needed to be heavily sedated. Why wasn't there an order for a haldol/atavan/benadryl cocktail?

You can work in nursing homes to gain experience but generally, you get a lot more experience in hospitals.

You can work in nursing homes to gain experience but generally, you get a lot more experience in hospitals.

You can work in a nursing home if you are not interested in being a nurse and willing to risk your license. Tried it for two weeks. No training (as it was promised) and thirty patients who need to be given meds in two hours. Do the math. That's 4 minutes per patient, assuming you have absolutely no interruptions, and includes breathing treatments, g tube administration, bs testing, and insulin. There is no time to assess your patients, yet you are expected to chart on them. I don't know how the states set the standards for those places, but it's messed up.

Of course you get more experience in the hospital, and if you plan to work for a drug company or insurance company or urgent care office, they all want two years of experience in acute.

Specializes in SRNA, ICU and Emergency Mursing.
Can someone please explain the job shortage to me? I constantly hear about how short we are of nurses, any nurses, and then at the same time, hear that its tough to get a job... really doesn't make sense to me. Pages and pages of ads, but no one replies when you apply. I am a 2nd career older male nursing student with a bachelors in another field and people continue to question if I'm going to return to my old field. Really? after nearly 2 years and 40k in debt, you think I'm going to walk away? Please help me understand this crazy field I'm trying to enter...

At least in the Los Angeles area, I believe it will be much harder if you only have an associates degree… I know many ADN's that have trouble finding "good" jobs (jobs not in a con-home/assisted living).

I am an EMT ( 2 years ) and just applied for pre-licensure BSN programs. I have spoken with staffing departments at the hospitals, and most hospitals I have worked with will not even consider an ADN. The hospitals will lose, or not be eligible, for "Magnet Status" unless all RN's have BSN minimum.

That is why I decided to skip the ADN completely and go straight for the pre-licensure BSN program at the local CSU…

Specializes in L&D.
Um, OK.

Seriously, man, while I'm all for tenacity and can-do attitudes, wait until you've been in the game for a few innings...

Lol that was funny.

I left RN school without completing it. But I think that all of the 35 or so that graduated from the diploma school R.N. program found jobs, most in 6 months or less. There was one woman who decided that she didn't want to do floor nursing. It took her maybe 6-8 months, but she did find a psych job, night shift in some facility for juveniles. Most of the grads are in the Pittsburgh, PA area and apparently western PA still does hire diploma and associate degree grads. But I believe that Class of 2012 (Dec 2012) was to be the last of the diploma RNs that the hospital would hire. Or maybe it's 2013. Anyway, it's a hospital-run diploma RN school, but after some cutoff date that hospital won't hire its own diploma RN grads until/unless they go get a BSRN degree. LOL

Healthcare has entered the Ludicrous Zone. (Ever watch the movie, Spaceballs, lol. Light speed is too slow. Must go to Ludicrous Speed!) Ya have Light Speed, then Ridiculous Speed, then Ludicrous. Then after Ludicrous, it goes to Plaid, or something. haha But a 2010 report by PA Workforce Development said that Allegheny County PA creates something like 780 registered nurse jobs per year. I don't actually know any registered nurses in western PA who are unemployed against their will.

If you're an adrenaline junkie and like the rush, go for the ER or ICU.

Specializes in Outpatient Psychiatry.

There's usually an opening in maintenance. I quite envied the lawn crew.

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