attitudes of male and female patients towards male nursing students

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Sep 12, 2005

Well personally, I dont like male nursing students. I would much rather have a female nursing student take care of me.

Jhanez_k2p · Sep 12, 2005

Well personally, I dont like male nursing students. I would much rather have a female nursing student take care of me.

What factors do you consider for not choosing male nursing student?

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Sep 12, 2005

What factors do you consider for not choosing male nursing student?

Just my general nature and attitudes torward life.

rfmages · Sep 13, 2005

Wow tee, I dont know what to say. I am almost speechless. (kinda offended even) As far as I have seen in my so far short career is that patients are initially somewhat apprehensive to a male nurse if they have never had one before. But then once we have an opportunity to take care of someone for a little while you get more compliments, letters and praise then you could believe. I wouldnt have it any other way then being a man in this field.

reyaguilar · Sep 14, 2005

" Attitudes of male and female patients towards male nursing students"
This is our topic for our nursing research. Im having a hard time looking for some related literature..but, fortunately, allnurses.com made it a little bit easy. However, latest statistics on number of male nurses in our country( Philippines) is really hard to find in the internet..

I am a male nursing stude here in Phoenix. Generally, the patients don't mind a male nursing student helping a regular nurse take care of them. Of course, one would find exeptions. I had patient, once, who had a bias against male students (or asians). She asked the charge nurse that she don't want me assigned to her. Also, in OB, the young mothers-to-be and husbands hesitate before letting male nurses work on them/their wives. Specially on areas like catheterization. I haven't met resistance from male patients though.

anonymurse · Sep 20, 2005

No probs here, even on L&D.

Ronold · Sep 20, 2005

I haven't had much problems with male or female patients. The only time I had about being a male was in L&D when a few patients didn't want to have a male student nurse which was understandable.

RNstudentBrian · Sep 21, 2005

Funny

I am in my second year in an ASN program. Up until today I would have said that I have never had a problem with any assignement.

Today I had two patients that were in their 30's (I am 42). They were both in for peri area procedures. One was no problem at all. The other seemed to be no problem. I worked with her all morning. Set her up for ADL's and then assisted her with back and peri care. She had a significant loss of blood and ended up staying for a 23 hour obs. Her H&H was 26.4/8.1. So I did not get her out of bed.

Then, when it came time to remove her foley and vag. packing I asked the RN if she minded if I observed. SHe told me to get the patients permission. Which she gave. No problem. Then the RN went in to the pt. room and came back a moment later. She informed me that the pt. indeed did not wish for me to observe. This is strange for me because I have been working as a paramedic for over 20 years and have always found that attitude and profesionalism seemed to overcome any type of concerns. I later was told by the pt's roomate that the RN came in and said to my pt. something to the effect of, You don't want a man to watch me do this, do you? Of course the pt. is going to agree with her nurse.

My instructor was not supportive at all stating, "I don't believe it". I have had men students here for the past couple of years and have never run into this. You must have misunderstood the situation.

Well, as they say. Live and learn.

Brian

Balder_LPN, LPN · Oct 7, 2005

Wow tee, I dont know what to say. I am almost speechless. (kinda offended even) As far as I have seen in my so far short career is that patients are initially somewhat apprehensive to a male nurse if they have never had one before. But then once we have an opportunity to take care of someone for a little while you get more compliments, letters and praise then you could believe. I wouldnt have it any other way then being a man in this field.

Read some of teeituptom's other posts, and I dont think you will be quite so offended :uhoh3:

Larry77, RN · Oct 7, 2005

The only time I have ever had an issue is when, like Ryan's situation a staff RN coached the Pt into saying they didn't want a Male in the room.

Now I am one of those "staff" RN's and have not had any problems with female pt's, but our attitude's as male nurses goes a long way. If we display calm, porfessional, confidence it is much more likely that the potentially uncomfortable experience will be a positive one for the patient.

My co-workers and I have had this conversation because there are very few male nurses on the surgical unit I work on and mostly they said they would not want me to take care of them, not because I'm a male, but because I "know" them and they would rather me not see their "parts".

The type of people who say they wouldn't let a male take care of them in my opinion are somewhat biased, or possibly had a bad experience with a man which could make them feel vulnerable, or they are just plain closed minded and old fashioned. If they are a man and they don't want "males" caring for them maybe they feel week as a man or they are afraid of getting laughed at maybe, or they would just rather have a "hot" female nurse they can tease inappropriately (I loved being called in for those kind of pt's, so you want to talk to the ladies inappropriately...fine I'LL put your catheter in we'll see if you flirt with me bud).

"Well personally, I dont like male nursing students. I would much rather have a female nursing student take care of me."

--this statement is exactly what we as male nurses need to overcome as an extra challenge in choosing this field. I wonder do you "not like" male doctors too? I have so many things that aren't nice to say that I'm holding back in this post but I hope the nurses taking care of me when I'm sick do not share this opinion with teeituptom.

graysonret · Oct 8, 2005

As a nursing student, I didn't once have a problem dealing with female patients. Even the patients in post-parnum thought having a male nurse, was "quite unique". But, over the years, I've run into female patients who didn't want me. That's okay. I'd just switch patients with a female nurse.