Re: Discrimination Against Men in Nursing

Originally Posted by dastolfo

My name is James a nursing student from Toronto, Ont. Canada. There is alot of different sterotypes out in the public eye regarding men and nursing and it is time to male nurses stand up and say that is needs to stop. We need to remind the public that these sterotypes are not ture and unfounded. Am invloved in educating high school student about breaking down these sterotypes surrouding men and nursing. Working togther we can stop the sterotyping out there which is not helping the image of nursing for men in the profession. Looking forward in hearing your thoughts.

James

"Nursing rocks"
" Are you men enough to be a nurse"

there are sterotypes in nursing be you male or female. here in the UK female nurses are equated with the 'carry on nurse' films and its assumed we wear the same uniforms as the nurses in the films..... also.. have you ever seen the nurses uniform in any of the sex shops??? my patients would have a cardiac arrest if i wore one of those.......

discriminenation.. as a female in nursing, I have never thought about the sex/colour or age of the nurse I am working with. we used to joke and say only the men became managers.. but I've worked with many many men over the years and they all do the same job i do.. maybe the problems isnt such an issue here. my nurse tutor was a man.. and a very good nurse. I will say though.. as a student nurse we always thought it a little unfair that the men in our class could get away with being late on duty etc by smiling and saying sorry sister... I'd have been skinned alive! they always seemed to get sent home early too...........! I trained 30yrs ago and in a class of 30 we had 9 men.. who are still in nursing.. so here men in nursing are not that rare..

Karen

Re: Discrimination Against Men in Nursing

I am a male nurse and I am one of three male nurses on my unit. I have no experiences with discrimination. When I was working at the gynacology unit I also didn't experience that. Some of our foreign patients did have problems with me when I had to tell there wives how to give breastfeeding but they all accepted it. When they had a great problem with it I always asked one of my female collegue's to tell the patients how to give breastfeed.
I now work on a surgery unit and there I never experienced discrimination because I am a male nurse. All the patients accepted it. There were patients who asked specificly for a male nurse.

Re: Discrimination Against Men in Nursing

Originally Posted by november551

As a only male nursing student in a class of 40 (level II), I definitely agree with the hyper-visibility that article mentions. There is a lot of stuff that my female classmates get away with that I would get crucified for if I did the same.
Example; In my clinical group last semester: One morning a female classmate's alarm didn't go off and she was half an hour late for clinicals - the instructor let it ride and didn't bat an eyelash. The next week another classmate showed up an hour late for some reason or another - again, same reaction from the instructor, "Oh it's alright don't worry about it I'm just glad you could make it!". The next morning my car wouldn't start and I had to catch a ride and arrived 15 minutes late. The instructor got an attitude and I was told to not let it happen again because lateness would not be tolerated, period. I agree that it's not acceptable to be late, but I definitely felt the sting of "hyper-visibility".
I could name a lot more examples but I'll let it rest at that.
Or the constant, "(insert situation/problem here) because you're a guy, I'm sure I'll have more luck since I am a female" I get from my classmates.
I just try to let the constant barrage of stereotypical male jokes the (female)professor tells in lecture roll off my back.

Yeah I totallly agree with you -- I put up with this nonsense in school as well..typically the clinical instructors would make ridiculous comments about men, and I was 1 of only 3 men in my class out of 24 women.....Also i would frequently be the butt of male jokes during a particular nursing class from a particular nursing instructor....very annoying.....

Basically in the workplace you shoudnt tolerate the nonsense, if someone makes an outlandish comment about you, you need to confront it immediately and let you know that you will not tolerate it. Moreover if it continues, merely document every incident and keep your mouth shut for awhile...complain the the administration and document everything...if nothing occurs, contact an attorney and sue. If they want to play it that way, you get paid, its that simple. There is no place for discrimination in the workplace for ANYBODY....i certainly would NEVER do it to anyone else simply because it accomplishes nothing and there is no point to it; its 2 bad others cant do the same. Sometimes the only thing that gets it to stop is when you call a lawyer, sad but true.

Re: Discrimination Against Men in Nursing

i have been a LPN for about 10 years now and have never had anything like what some of you other have gone through happen to me. well some of my friends tease me at times. that gaylord fooker was no help but most of it was in fun. nobody will roast ya like a good friend . i would normaly would respond with "what other job can you have where 95% of your co-workers are women"

Re: Discrimination Against Men in Nursing

I'm not a nurse, and I don't have anything truly amazing to say on this subject, but I had a few observations that I wanted to post.

I come here often to get more insight to what my dh is going through in nursing school (he is studying to be an RN, graduates in a year) or to get my questions answered about what to expect in the future, this topic being one of them, (I think I've only posted twice?).

My father is also a nurse (LPN) as is my mother (BSN), and reading all this about discrimination has made me look back over the past couple of decades from when my father went to school to be an LPN (1984) and now when my husband is in school.

I remember at 9 years old telling my friends that my father was studying to be a nurse. I got laughed at, and asked, "Don't you mean a doctor?" I can't even count the amount of times I had to educate my classmates on the fact that "Men can be nurses too!"

Then there was the whole my Mom being an RN and my Dad being an LPN, (they're married for 32 years now BTW) that came up a couple of times within our family about who knew what better! LOL

Now however, with my husband and the children (12-13) I care for (I'm a nanny), they tell all their friends that their babysitter's husband is going to be an RN and that he might work at the hospital where their mom works (as a doctor) they dream up scenerios where my husband and their mom are running into eachother every day, and them travelling to work together etc. LOL

The thought that my dh is going to be a nurse and their mom is a doctor, as being weird doesn't even occur to them, or their friends, more just the fact that they might work at the same hospital fascinates them! So Yay to future generations! And the way they are being raised!

One of the instructors at my husband's school is a nurse (Male) and when I've been to the ER my nurses have been mostly male. My husband is proud of becoming a nurse and has no desire to be a doctor, he made that decision about a year before he started school when he had to decide on a profession.

The thought that "men can't be nurses" didn't even occur to him. Or even the idea of discrimination, he's never had any negative response when he's told others, and even encouragement that he will be a "wonderful nurse" from countless people including our dentist! LOL

I think that as part of the 21st century the people that are going to be adults in the next decade are the ones that are being raised with such a different view of what's "normal" that discrimination will be just another thing that "the uneducated people" do. (My husband is African/American btw so he's used to being in the minority, so that might have influence on how he reacts to choosing a career where he's in the minority as well.)

The world is changing though, my BIL is a bank manager, and his girlfriend is a special education teacher both of them with pierced tongues. A few years ago that would have been looked on as unprofessional. Now it's just part of life.

Okay, my rambling is done, My thought is just that "Male" nurses need to just bide their time and continue doing what they are doing in educating the masses and eventually the term "male nurse" will be just as uncommon as the term "female nurse".

Sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense, and I hope nobody minds my posting (not being a nurse and all) I just had images in my head of the past few years that I wanted to share with everyone .

Re: Discrimination Against Men in Nursing

believe its because we are not many in the profession the women are many...

Originally Posted by suzanne4

I have worked in specialty areas for years, and they all have had a large percentage of male nurses.

Harassment can go either way, and I am sure that you can find articles about female nurses that are suing for the same reasone. You are posting only about one case.

Even where I am working now, there is definitely a large percentage of male nurses, as well as males respiratory therapists.

Just a novel concept.... Let's make the Nursing and medical profession the same as like any other "business" profession.. you know like one where if you don't complete the project, or close the sale, or build the boat, or roof the condo... you don't get paid..... and then we'll see how many frivolous lawsuits pelter us daily in the newspapers.

"Discrimination" is much too harsh a word. I have worked as a male in a female dominated environment and I took notice of the fact that most of the other people working were women and that numerous things which I previously had not taken notice had to be accounted for...

Other than that , I experienced absolutely no "discrimination" ... Most people are what they are... If they are going to be unhelpful, they'll do so regardless of gender...

If they are going to be obtuse, they'll do so even if you're a genderless carrot... Frankly I've found people in the "nursing" field radiate a sort of impending doom complacency as if they are always concerned about liability which considering the legal climate the last 20 years.. they probably are...

I'm planning on enrolling in my actual RN licensure course of study soon.. My prior experience was as a Lab Tech in a major public health care facility with which I had a daily interaction with the nursing staff during rounds and blood collection.. Never had a problem with anyone regardless of gender.

Did notice some excessively "other people's business" interested parties who happened to be female at THIS facility but I'm sure that's not a personality trait exclusive to women.... Go around enough places and you'll find plenty of men who just have to know what EVERYONE else is doing regardless of whether they are actually doing their own task at hand <g>

Re: Discrimination Against Men in Nursing

Being male and in nursing has been nothing but a positive experience. I don't feel discriminated whatsoever. I think the article and it's content is a mindset of the past, as more men are going into nursing and loving it. I feel like I am treated equally and fairly and have never experienced anything negative related to my gender. I would encourage guys to enter this extremely exciting and rewarding profession.

Re: Discrimination Against Men in Nursing

at the minute i have a quandary aobut the whole men in nursing thing

as a male RN who has been redeployed from the emergency dept to an Acute Assessment Unit - takes the majority of unplanned admissions medicla and surgical apart from the known haematolgy patients presneting acutely who go direct to the Haem / onc unit and a lot of the ortho trauma stuff which generally goes direct from the ED to the Ortho trauma wards...

so i've changed speciality and working environment substantially and effectively taken a step down ( from a Senior staff Nurse role in the ED to staff nurse on the assessment unit - which for the first 6 or so months is unsuprising given the change in environment and the need to learn the new environments way of working ... 0

however a few of the more junior female RNs seem to have a downer on me and seem to think that i am trying to belittle them by offering to do things for them / their patients - don't know if it's a gender thing or whether they don't actually appreciate the skills knowledge and experience i bring to the table ...

Re: Discrimination Against Men in Nursing

What you're experiencing could happen in any work environment, and is certainly not a gender thing. From experience I have learned to focus on my responsibilties and workload, and if anyone asks for help I am more than happy to oblige. When I have some down time, I may ask a colleague if I can be of service but that's the extent of it. Because you're dealing with many different people and personalities in this profession, it's not surprising to me that you're experiencing some opposition, even though you're intentions are good and some(like me) would be appreciative and thankful for your knowledge and experience. Your colleagues obviously see that you're an experienced proficient nurse, but it just might be your whole approach that you may have to evaluate?!?! They also may feel like you're trying to play Doctor?!?!? Stay positive as this will all pass...