Compulsory male preceptoring

[stablesystole]

I'm wondering if any of the rest of you guys have seen the same thing I've seen in my time (both personally and watching other people).

It seems to me that in nursing, there is a small and entirely unintentional discrimination in that male orientees always get paired with male preceptors. This is done automatically and without any thought given to the quality of the tutelage that will be given. I got paired with a preceptor who I found out afterwards had had his two prior orientees fail hard, as well as the one after myself. I succeeded in spite of him rather than because of him. I saw the same pattern time and time again when I was a tech in school working on a different unit too. It worked in reverse too. A fantastic preceptor would get no newbie to train if none of the new hires were men.

Now I've taken a new job in a different hospital and I'm once again being paired with the other man even though he is a traveler and the unit educator has felt it necessary to warn me not to learn from him too well because he does a lot of things the wrong way. Wow.

Anyone else noticed a trend like this or have tips how to deal with it?

[SummitRN, BSN, RN]

Not in my experience as a student (NEVER happened) nor as a nurse.

[azhiker96, BSN, RN]

My orientation was split between two preceptors, one male and one female. As a nurse I've precepted more females than males. It may have just been the case in that unit.

[scceda, BSN, RN]

My preceptor was a female too, as well as the orientating nurses when I was hired after graduation. Probably your observation is more like a random case.

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Yeah, sounds like a random thing. Doesn't happen where I work.

[chrisrn24]

They probably think a man is more comfortable with a man and vice versa. Is it right? No...

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

I have never seen nor heard of such a phenomenon.

Also, who is to say that the preceptor is responsible for the 3 orientees who failed "hard?"

[FuturePsychNP]

I've never had a male preceptor. Come to think of it, I've never worked a shift with another male.

[zzbxdo]

My unit is pretty even 50/50 m/f. My primary preceptor is crazy, but really good. I had other preceptors in the unit to fill in gaps when she was unavailable or charge and had a handful of the guys carry me under their wings when I was a noob. All the veterans in my unit are crazy in one way or another, but hey it's a burn icu so maybe there's a reason why.

[nurse2033, MSN, RN]

Did not experience that, but you should bring it up to management. Or skip them and go right to Human Resources and inform them of the practice.

[PNWxplant]

I've had male and female preceptors. They were both some of the best nurses I have ever met.

After the managers comment about the travelers skills, I would have immediately asked, "May you please assign me a preceptor that will help me learn the best skills possible? I don't want to learn bad habits from anyone.":