Can a male RN work on obstetrics?

[lorster]

I have discovered recently that my hospital will not allow one of our male nurses to float to the OB floor because he is a male. We take turns floating and they continually skip his float date. The other day, a surgical floor aide(male) was going to have to float to the OB floor. Instead, they pulled our female aide to OB and made the surgical male aide come to our floor and work. I also know this OB department denied a preceptorship to a male nursing student. I thought gender discrimination was illegal these days. It is blatantly obvious this is going on at our facility. Any comments? Suggestions?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

When I was attending an LVN program in the greater Los Angeles area back in 2005, the suburban hospital where I completed my OB clinical rotations had a male RN working in the L&D department.

[lorster]

So there is no law out there that states a male nurse cannot work obstetrics?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Of course not!

However, many of the same women who use male OB/GYNs will, for some reason, prefer that a female nurse attend their births. Therefore, many hospitals and birthing centers prefer to hire only female staff onto their OB units.

In addition, many females from certain cultures do not want any males (physician or nurse) in the room while they are birthing.

[NJNursing, ASN, RN]

We are an all female unit with the female to male doctor ratio being 3:1. There are cultures that insist on being female only and I know when I was in nursing school there were 2 male students and during ob rotation, patients would refuse them. I know myself, I was uncomfortable with a male residents checking me.

[PedsRN9999]

Can a male RN work in obstetrics? The answer is YES!!! been floating there for several years now.

[gemininurse71]

Our unit has 2 male RNs in L&D and both are EXCELLENT nurses who I would not hesitate to receive care from. They do occasionally get "fired" for being male but for the most part they get good comment cards as much as anyone else.