attention Rural male nurses

allnurses Guide · Oct 13, 2003

I work in a small rural hospital and when I started there were 5 male RN's and one male LVN. There were 8 female RN's.

All but one of the male RN's has left for greener pastures.

We have one new male RN who used to be a traveler for us. And a male LVN.

steph

gwenith, BSN, RN · Oct 13, 2003

Where is Ted when we need him. If you want to I can pop this thread over into the rural nursing forum. Are you picky about the country of origin? I have some good rural information in the Australasian forum............

wannaknow · Oct 13, 2003

Hello!!! Yes!!! I would appreciate any insight into this question. It would especially be appreciated if their was some way to have a few male objectives as to why this ratio appears to be so low. Do the female nurses outnumber the male nurses 10:1?? Do male nurses really prefer the greener pastures?? (even though I not quite sure I know what is meant by that). If you know of a better thread to post this on (rural) it would be a great asset. thank-you for the information!!!

nialloh, RN · Oct 13, 2003

I am a male nurse in a north NJ hospital that I trained in. I work with 4 other men (we're still outnumbered). I checked the associated school of nursing as to male freshmen students, and it is 22 in a class of 58.

sjoe · Oct 13, 2003

It is largely a matter of statistics. Male nursing students comprise about 16% (the last I read) of nursing students, but by the time 5 years have passed after graduation, about 6% of nurses are male, as males leave the profession in much higher percentages than do females.

So if you have a hospital with only a few nurses, you will not likely find many male nurses. A large hospital with hundreds of nurses will have more.

Also a lot of guys want to go into higher-paid specialties, that may not exist in large numbers in rural areas--as higher pay itself usually does not--which is yet another reason Canada loses so many of its talented people to the US.

allnurses Guide · Oct 13, 2003

The male nurses I worked with who left, left for the greener pastures of specialization and then more money. One is a CCU nurse now.

Rural nursing is the exact opposite of specialization. You do a little of everything here . . med/surg, post-op, pre-op, recovery room, surgery, OB, LTC, wound care, ER. That is one of the draws to rural nursing. It is also one of the things that some people don't like.

The guys who left didn't have families. They wanted to get really good at one thing.

I'm tempted sometimes to do the same but I have a family with firm roots here.

steph

ryaninmtv, ADN, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN · Oct 13, 2003

The hospital I trained at had only 4-5 males nurses (RN and LPN). If I later went to work at a large level one trauma center where there were more men nurses but the ratio was roughly the same. That's been my experience.

ceecel.dee, MSN, RN · Oct 14, 2003

40 nurses on our roster (RN's and LPN's) and no males.

The one we had up until 3 years ago also left for greener pastures. How we miss him...one in a million!

gwenith, BSN, RN · Oct 14, 2003

I have moved the thread to the rural nurses forum as that should get you more information from rural nurses.

This site is Australian but might contain some information for you.

http://www.crana.org.au/aboutus.html

Todd SPN · Oct 15, 2003

Generally, rural areas don't have gay bars. JUST KIDDING! (But it is true)

There are 4 males in my class and all of them but me would like to work in the big city after graduation. They are young (21-24), single and want to experience lots of different night life and make better money doing nursing than what can be made in the somewhat small area they are in now. I, on the other hand, being older and already having spent time in the big city, treasure what the rural area has to offer. But being older and a homeowner with kids that have left home means I don't need to chase the dollar like they do.

Ted · Oct 15, 2003

It's small. It's really small. It's really, really, really small.

And there's. . . let me count. . . uuummmm. . . .

one. . .

two. . .

three. . .

four. . .

maybe five???. . . .

of us male gendered XY chromosomed typed nurses.

To me it all boils down to preference. I spent the first 7 1/2 years of my nursing career working for a large. . . really large. . . quite big, actually. . . teaching, city, busy, busy hospital. Worked on a heme/onc/bmt unit. Still do, actually, but on a per diem basis (usually twice a month to get my big city, teaching hospital fix. ) Right now, I am thoroughly enjoying working full-time for a small, rural hospital. Work nights. When we're not busy, we have fun! Everyone knows everyone. We have hospital-wide birthday party celebrations (which is not hard to do when your hospital only has a total of 30+ beds including the ER and maternity!!). I float all over the place, which I enjoy doing: ICU/CCU (my home base), E.R., med/surg, PACU. Sometimes all in one night!!!! :eek:

I enjoy doing everything. I do my own EKG's, lab draws, mix my own IV medications (our one and only pharmacist works Mondays through Fridays, 9 to 5!), run my own codes (until our one and only night MD. . . the ER physician. . . comes up to help. . . usually within a few minutes or sometimes more. . . ), and spend a lot of time with the patients. A LOT of time with the patients. . . when they want it! :)

This is totally opposite working in my fast and furious big, city, teaching hospital. All the "tasks" are done by specialty staff (phlebotomists, EKG techs, etc.). I only see the nursing on the heme/onc/bmt unit. . . the hospital is too large to get to know anyone else. If I even try to go down to the E. R. to pick up my patient like I do at my small rural hospital, the E. R. nurses would shoot me!!! There is no such "happenings" at this large and teaching-type hospital.

The differences between the two hospitals are like apples and oranges. I like my apples. . . working for the small, rural hospital. . . more on a full-time basis. However, I do enjoy the challange of working for a large teaching hospital. . . my orange. . . where I see higher acuity and expose myself to new treatments which I might not see otherwise.

Given an absolute choice between the two, right now in my life I would pick the small rural hospital. Like I said, I thoroughly enjoy the "community" aspect of such a fruit.

I work in and ICU/CCU. One other male nurse works in an E.R.; another on the Med/surg floor; and still the other in the O. R. We all work on different shifts so we don't see eachother that much.

There's only one place where the issue of sex seems to make a difference for this particular hospital. And that place is. . . can you guess where?????

Let's all say it together:

The Maturnity Floor

Yep! For some reason, many of the maturnity nurses and its nurse manager does NOT want a male nurse to be exposed to lady partss with babies popping out of them. So. . . I do NOT float to the maturnity floor.

But I've gone there anyhow. . . to see the babies. . . those cute little babies! Oh they're so cute, aren't they??? And, on occasion, I feed the baby some formula. . . and burb it. . . and coo at it. . . and say, "Oh what a cute baby!" :)

And I'm able to do that because I work for a small, rural COMMUNITY hospital. Where "Community" not only applies to the hospital to its surrounding. . . where community not only applies to the nurses and their patients. . . but where a community ALSO applies to one hospital staff member to another, no matter what department they may work, and enjoy each other's friendship and help.

Hope this is helpful to you! :)

Ted