woman's view, shocked at the emotional anger directed towards male students

Cartman1532 · Feb 6, 2007

It sounds like your program has a problems with discrimination--I am entering a Accelerated Second Degree Program this May for a BSN. It is at a Private Catholic University--I did enquire about this type of Discrimmination--The Nursing School Dept Head--Told me that No-one in the Second Deg Program has ever failed--And if an instructor was using gender as a device of discrmination --they would remove that instructor quickly.--It should raise a red flag to administration if all their male students are failing the program.

Gennaver, MSN · Feb 7, 2007

It sounds like your program has a problems with discrimination--I am entering a Accelerated Second Degree Program this May for a BSN. It is at a Private Catholic University--I did enquire about this type of Discrimmination--The Nursing School Dept Head--Told me that No-one in the Second Deg Program has ever failed--And if an instructor was using gender as a device of discrmination --they would remove that instructor quickly.--It should raise a red flag to administration if all their male students are failing the program.

Hello,

Initially we were told that there has been about a 10% attrition rate. So, out of our program group of about 25 we figured that maybe there was a possibility of one or two of us needing to drop.

Meanwhile our group picked up four students from previous cohorts or from students who were going part time and only had the clinical portion left. We lost three of them to dropping.

One was dismissed for failing a clinical, (woman) the next one to leave was a guy, (I suspect he was coerced out by his clinical instructor who is a "odd" professor who seems to have personality issues-oh, she has her PhD in psych nursing).

The next man out was dismissed from a theory class based upon classroom conflict and plagerism, (his dismissal was black and white and policy).

The next two men were dismissed this clinical.

Knowing that the woman who was dismissed for failing clinical has never returned nor was she allowed to return I highly doubt that these two men will be allowed to return.

One of them was completely finished with all courses, (minus one) totally 107 quarter credit hours, several years and nearly 40,000 dollars worth of education. He was dropped with only one class left. ???

Saddened by this, and dismayed at my future alma mata...

Gen

cesRN · Feb 7, 2007

Wow, that sounds ludicrous especially about not working with the student if he only had one (1) clinical left. That is just absurd to hear and sounds like whoever dismissed them were on a mission. This infuriates me, considering of course that they were excellent students.

NurseDaddy2006 · Feb 7, 2007

Serio said "Wow, that sounds ludicrous especially about not working with the student if he only had one (1) clinical left. That is just absurd to hear and sounds like whoever dismissed them were on a mission. This infuriates me, considering of course that they were excellent students."

Yeah, tell me about it.

I'll spare you the gory details, but I had one day left before graduation, and made a mistake in clinical that caused nobody any harm, but certainly stepped on a few toes and wrinkled an ego or two. I've talked to a few people at school who feel that it was a personality thing - Professor XYZ... she who's name shall not be spoken around here, just did not like me. I had a 90 average going into the final. 3.83 GPA. Outstanding clinical evals. Did not matter.

I am now a couple of weeks into taking the ENTIRE semester over again. Some of the people here know my story. Oh, and today, I learned that the school started an extra help program to KEEP those who are not succeeding IN the program. Especially those who are minorities.

Hmm. 41, male? One of 4 in a class? Financially strapped? I'm a minority but they did not take any of that into account. But I'm over it and moving on.

ND2007

caliotter3 · Feb 7, 2007

Instructors on a "mission", targeted students, and subtle or behind the scenes discrimination are not new or limited in their occurrences in nrsg schools. Underhanded tactics were used at my school. The instructor(s) who operated in this manner were known. One of my clinical instructors prided herself in getting rid of students and made no bones about telling so when she dressed people down as she informed them that she had failed them for the final clinical of the program. Bad school experiences reflecting in hurt, damaged, and dismissed students only reflect what will be found later on in the workplace.

Roy Fokker, BSN, RN · Feb 8, 2007

One of 4 in a class? Financially strapped? I'm a minority but they did not take any of that into account. But I'm over it and moving on.

Glad you're over it and moving on...

Stick it to 'em!

cheers,

Roy (who was One of Five - but I know where you're coming from....)

jov · Feb 9, 2007

I never noticed anything poor about their clinical performance? Maybe I missed it but, I am baffled.
I feel like they were targeted. There must have been things going on behind the scenes that I was unaware of but, gosh, to fail them from clinical?
Gen

Unless you are telling us that it was ONLY men who failed in your program, perhaps you should stay more open minded about this. Male nursing students can fail as well as female ones can. You may not have noticed anything poor about their clinical performance because... you are not their instructor?

I think you may be viewing things through a skewed lens. You have posted an emotional message with very little facts, which would be understandable because their performance is not your business.

Just posting this to say be careful about accusing nursing programs about having some sort of anger directed towards male nursing students. In my program, we have a track of approximately 60, of which 6 are men and it's been my experience everyone (students and instructors) are pretty happy to have men coming into the field. In fact, they get a little bit too much positive attention...

You may have a situation that is limited to your nursing program alone. JMO

Psqrd · Feb 10, 2007

I have had nothing but positive feelings from both instructors and nurses on the floor during my clinicals. I do know what you mean about too much positive attention...One of the floor nurses was a bit too excited when she saw me on the floor commenting in a loud voice in the middle of the nurses station how great she thought it was to see men in nursing. Just a bit embarrassing but I got over it quick...and just thanked her. Keep on nursing!

november17, ASN, RN · Feb 24, 2007

Yes you are right and it isn't really fair.

I actually got a reputation around school during first semester for being late to class and clinicals all the time. Which was REALLY odd and irritated me to no end because I was never late during the entire first semester. If anything I always tried to show up 15-30 minutes early - on my "late" days I showed up with 5 minutes to spare before pre-conference. It was just some dumb stuff one student was joking around about one day in clinicals, and then everyone in the entire program started saying it as word spread. One of my clinical instructors wrote on my first semester eval that I need to make sure I focus on being timely in future classes (I actually had to dispute this to get it taken off the eval). At the beginning of second semester the professor singled me out, took me aside one day, and told me to NOT be late because nursing school is serious business. I feel like I was getting picked on at the time for being a guy. Especially given that I had never been late or even missed a day? Especially over something that started more or less as a joke because almost everyone else in my clinical group were the type that showed up 20 minutes early rain/wind/snow.

Now I'm in my last semester and I just can't wait to be done. Now I get to be picked on for being a guy in the workplace!

lab211 · Feb 24, 2007

I am a guy in his 40's 10 weeks away from finishing my BS in nursing. All the four of us guys whom I started with are together. I have not heard of any guys complaining of being treated differently, in fact I don't feel that I am being treated any differently than the females.

Your situation could be an isolated case. It is certainly a possibility that men are being discriminated for crossing into a female's turf, just like there has been difficulties for women becoming doctors. Some areas of this country are more conservative than others. I have not felt from my classmates of instructors any waves of negativity simply for being male. And I am glad. I am just comforted by the fact that I have 10 weeks to go.

It isn't easy, we are under so much pressure. I decided not to work for the remainder of the semester so that I can keep up with the assignments, tests, etc.

RN2BnNC · Mar 5, 2007

I have no idea how any other school runs...I can only attest from my own experiences at my own school.

I am one of 5 males in a class of 42...since I'm taking psych nursing f(1st 8 weeks) and mother/baby (2nd 8 weeks) my class is split up. My class I'm in only has 12 people in it (3 guys....9 females)...and no matter what size class I am in...I stick out like a sore thumb...one of the first comments I get every semester is something to the effect of "oh its so wonderful to see more men entering nursing".....blah blah blah....all i am trying to say is that whether your talking about men in nursing or something else.....i wish for once it would just be PEOPLE and not male or female or black or white or asian...etc...ya know?

I did have an opportunity to talk with my schools chancellor along with about 15 other guys (pretty much all the males in all the programs in the school) ....school probably has about 1000 people attending. Good odds? Bad odds? I guess it depends on your point of view.

I don't know about any of you other guys but before I made some friends here...most of my male buddies and I have gotten "THE QUESTION" at least once...."are you gay?" and no I am not...and to be honest, I found it extremely insulting to automatically think a guy is gay if he enters nursing.

You might as well say that no woman should be allowed out of the kitchen and into medical school.

I kept my mouth shut and a couple of those females are close friends of mine now....well i better drop it before i get even more frustrated....that topic gets me going....

To be fair, even nurses and doctors at the hospitals I've done clinicals at assumed I was a doctor, until I corrected them or straightened my badge on my lab coat (which had my school badge on..HINT HINT!!) but when doing clinical prep, I dressed up in biz casual and a white lab coat? hmmm now why didn't my female classmates who dressed similarly get mixed up as physicians?? THINGS that make ya say hmmm....??

As for clashing with instructors? Oh i've done that....and Im keeping my mouth shut (i'll jump through this hoop if that gets me past you)...then I won't have to see you again....lets just say that if a clinical instructor admits to a student that they have she has no idea where any of her students she is in charge of during clinicals stands...(what they know...what they are comfortable with...) since she does not attend the lecture part of the class...then how is that person "PREPARED" for clinicals? she's not with each of us every second of the day...matter of fact there are over 10-12 of us...so she has to float in between us....anyways....

i'll stop at that....i type too much....later