Re: So I am a male Cna at a hospital Originally Posted by JayVArn 
I am working right now in the ICU as a nurse and I am a male. Two things that bugged me.
#1 Despite this being every man's dream (or you are stuffing your scrubs with something...only kidding) I would talk to the nurse about this. Plain and simple this is sexual harrasment. If a male doctor said this about an RN breasts what do you think would happen? Deep s#!@t There is no, and I mean no reason you should have to put up with that. Talk to her, then go up the chain of command if it continues. You are a health care professional and part of the care team, not something to stare at.
#6, You should not have to be the only one to lift patients. It doesn't matter how strong you are. Get more people to help or talk to your charge about getting lift devices. My hospital is now has a "no lift policy" meaning we have technology and do not have to lift. Essentially I can reposition a 300 lb unconsicous pt with the push of a button. People still call me in to help, and I either make them use the lift or get more people. Our demographic (young men) have the highest rate of back injuries among nurses for that reason. You are young and if you want to have a lasting career in nursing I would start lifting smarter.
I also don't let people call me a male nurse. Sometimes I look at them and say with a smile "Well I take care of female patients as well." How would someone else like it if I called them a Female Doctor or Female Engineer? It doesn't bug me, just annoys me
I am a CNA and had the exact same lifiting issue at an LTC facility I worked for recently. I was being called on to do a lot of extra lifting because I was and still am a male and I am not even a big guy. I hate to say it but most of the CNA's there were bigger than I and at least as physically strong. Of course in healthcare we're all helping each other supposedly, but there is a difference between helping your co-workers and being called on to do extra work that others are not being asked to do. For the first month I just sucked it up. After the second month I became more selective. I only did extra solo lifting when asked to do so by a nurse. I would never say "no" to a nurse. I always felt comfortable with a nurse saying either "I would rather find another way to do this in order to protect my back" or "I don't think I can manage this on my own so I think it would be best for the patient if we did it another way." I said something like that to the other CNA's and they would look at me as if I'd insulted their firstborn. Their attitude seemed to be because I was a male I was there to assume whatever risks.
I started to do extra lifting only as part of a team and not just as two people...because again I am not a big guy and I felt a lot of these girls were taking advantage without really looking for alternatives. For example, they would call me to lift without trying to go for the lift equipment. I don't know about how female nurses deal with male nurses but as a CNA I felt the nurses were more reasonable on this issue than the female CNA's who seemed to resent the fact that I stopped doing all the grunt work for them solo. By month 3 their resentment had resulted in so much animosity towards me that I resigned.
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