Dismantling beliefs about male nurses

[kevinm23]

Hi I am writing a paper about dismantling beliefs about male nurse and I would like to hear from nursing community about what beliefs about male nurse should be removed or should stay and what is your reason for either one?

Thank You

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

That we are all gay.

We weren't smart enough to make it into medical school

We make better nurses than females

[neuron]

The word 'nursing' needs to go. It needs to be nurse tech or something like that. It is really a unisex job

[labordude, BSN, RN]

How about we stop using the term "male nurse"? That combination of words says that a nurse is female unless otherwise denoted by being male?

I disagree with fibroblast, the word nursing should not go, it has nothing to do with gender. To call us a nurse tech is to diminish what we do.

Clinical educators need to stop making differentiation among students when setting patient assignments. The assumption should be that any student can care for any patient, UNLESS otherwise specified or requested. No more of the "are you okay with having a male student?" or any crap like that.

Men can and should work in all areas of nursing including maternal/child and obstetrical specialties. (Guy in Babyland and myself are prime examples) Negative experiences in school aren't helping improve diversity in these areas...oh yeah, I used the 'd' word for something other than ethnicity when it comes to nursing.

The use of touch while providing care is not sexual, regardless of the gender of the nurse utilizing it. I would be terrible at my job if I couldn't use touch in conjunction with words and actions to care for my patients.

That we are there for muscle and patient lifting, screw that it's a job for Hoyer I need my back!

Nursing school is taught from an almost completely female perspective, there are some highly educated and influential PhD prepared nurse dudes who have written some excellent papers, we just seem to be stuck on old theories and don't get me started on Watson.

Here's a good resource: O'Lynn C. Gender-based barriers for male nursing students in nursing education programs: prevalence and perceived importance. Journal of Nursing Education. 2014; 98(12): 18-25.

I wrote a thesis on men in obstetrical nursing so I have a boatload of references that I periodically refresh on the experiences on men in OB nursing and also the experiences of nursing students who are male.

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

The word 'nursing' needs to go. It needs to be nurse tech or something like that. It is really a unisex job

I am not a male, but I do not understanding the reasoning for this.

I get frustrated with my female coworkers who automatically go to the males for lifting patients - it isn't fair to the male coworkers (both for physical reasons and time management) and I think it is lazy of the female coworkers to automatically go to them instead of thinking of alternative options.

[MotoMonkey, BSN, RN]

Belief that needs dismantled: That men in the nursing profession are in any way different than anyone else in the nursing profession. The notion that men in nursing are somehow different in any way is ridiculous. We need to stop promoting this idea.

My opinion (Which was not asked for) is that these are labels that we (as a profession) have put on ourselves. Nurses have created and potentiated this artificial, unnecessary, and ridiculous "us vs. them" mentality about men in the profession. I think that the more we talk about it like there is an actual difference in care or ability, the more we divide nursing.