Is it difficult for men to get into NICU?

[MattNurse, MSN, RN]

I am looking for a change. I was just wondering if many of you work with men in your units. I always heard that most NICU nurses come from labor and delivery.

[Fall.out.nerd]

I work with 2 males in my NICU, and can say I don't see why a male can't work there. There are some moms who may be uncomfortable with a male while trying to breast feed but you'll find females with a preference for a female nurse anywhere you work.

If you want to do it, I say go for it!

[Bortaz, MSN, RN]

I'm the only male nurse on my unit.

[labordude, BSN, RN]

I am looking for a change. I was just wondering if many of you work with men in your units. I always heard that most NICU nurses come from labor and delivery.

Most NICU nurses I've met have never worked labor and delivery at all, they want very little to do with caring for adults as patients. I'm usually the only male in the units I work in just like Bortaz. It gives me something unique to bring to my patients. The fathers are tremendously thankful seeing another male handling their tiny infant and teaching them to do so as well. If you want to do NICU, ask if you can shadow somewhere and see what it's all about. Best of luck.

[karnicurnc, MSN, APRN, CNS]

I think it's great to have male nurses in the NICU.

[MelissaS]

We have quite a few male nurses in my unit. I think we have 8. I don't think it's true about NICU nurses coming from L & D. Most of our nurses have either been in NICU forever, were originally new grads, or came from peds.

[littlepeopleRNICU]

We don't have any male nurses that I know of(I am a few weeks new and we have over 100 nurses for my unit), but we do have a lot of males in respiratory. And a lot of the MDs/residents are males...and we have a male NP. I don't think parents/staff are unreceptive to males! I think it's awesome if you want to move to NICU :)

And I came from the adult world- telemetry. No peds/L&D experience outside of nursing school!

[llg, PhD, RN]

I've worked in several different NICU's over the years and have known very few NICU nurses who previously worked L&D. Also, I have never seen any significant amount of discrimination against men as RN's in NICU's.

Finally, you might be interested to know that the founder and first President of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses was/is a man. (Chuck Rait). Also, there were at least 3 other men providing active leadership to the specialty in the early days of that organization (Tracy Karp, Vince Casani, and David Allen). So while men have definitely been a minority of the NICU nursing population, they have certainly been a visible and respected part of the NICU nursing community.

[shermrn]

The NICU I work in has about 150 nurses and four of us are males, there is also one male RT, a male NP, and a male NA. It seems many of the nurses came as new grads or from other areas of adult nursing. If it's something you want to do, go for it.

[Calabria, BSN, RN]

Actually, most of our NICU nurses (who didn't start as new grads there) came from med/surg floors, not L&D. We have a male respiratory therapist, and several male neonatology attending physicians.

We used to have a male NICU nurse on our staff. He was well-liked and respected.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

We have over 100 on staff now and 8 guys. We have never had anyone come from LD, most of ours are new grads or transfers in from peds or other ICU's .

[Bortaz, MSN, RN]

NicuGal, I didn't know they had a NICU is Lilliput. :)