Discrimination

I have been a nurse for over 24 years, and a man for longer!

Since I moved into management I have noticed that there is a lot of genderism out there. Boy, the ladies want to keep men out of their domain. A lot of legal cases are going on against male nurses, and in some ways this profession has a distinct biase against us. There is not a lot of research literature about this - but often a senior nurse may choose to discriminate, or believe the worst about an individual because he's a man.

They maintain their position by stating that the world outside is dominated by men, so why shouldn't they dominate the world of nursing. I do think that some female nurses feel threatened by us, and then discriminate against us because we are different.

What do you think?

Honestly, I haven't seen it. I've read about it, but my own experiences have been entirely positive. My supervisors and co-workers have been nothing but supportive and all assure me I'm going to be a great nurse. Gee, I hope they're right. They usually seem pretty smart about these things, but I'm not sure they understand what an incompetent dullard I really am.

See, if I'd paid more attention in Pharmacology, I would know just which anxiolytic agent I needed, right now.

I've been a nurse since 1989, and have always worked alongside male colleagues - as fellow students, registered nurses, associate charge and charge nurses, and managers.

Obviously, as a woman, I haven't endured the bias that you report, and I'm sorry that this has been your experience.

I, for one, certainly don't think that because "the world outside is dominated by men..." that means women have some right or obligation to "dominate the world of nursing."

On other threads nurses (of both genders) have posted that some women may reacted like this out of fear; I don't disbelieve them, but I also don't understand what there is to be afraid or threatened by.

I have found men who are nurses to be technically excellent, compassionate, superb communicators, thorough practitioners, and skilled educators, with a strong work ethic and charming personality. I have also men who are nurses that are disturbingly inept, lacking empathy, virtually illiterate, uneven practitioners and insufficiently educated to teach a cat, with absenteeism and unpleasant personas. This has also been my experience working with women, with doctors, patients and reatives - people are not easily categorised by gender or occupation or background.

I have honestly never experienced any discrimination by any nurse manager, male or female.

So far, I've worked on several units at two different hospital. I realize that many have worked more. Still, I also never heard (through casual conversaton, gossip, etc) of any overt discrimination from a female nurse manager to any male staff nurses.

i have been a nurse for over 24 years, and a man for longer!

larry,

i am grateful for all male nurses i encounter on the job. besides the obvious reasons (lifting help and someone nicer to look at other than the 94 yr olds) i really appreciate a male point of view when in a patient crisis or just discussing a patients plan of care. men think differently than women and often offer more logical ,less emotional ( i'll probably get hissed at by women nurses for saying that...hehe) and more fact based opinions and often make better and quicker judgement calls. so i say we need to recruit much more male rn's. i've already recruited my son. please forgive me if this doesn't make much sense as i just got off a 3pm to 7am shift but i had to let all you men know how appreciated you are by me!!! hooray for men for all reasons.

karen