Do men in healthcare suffer from burnout?

ItsTheDude · Mar 17, 2011

it's gonna depend on the person and the type of nursing work they do. there's so many ways to make a living being a nurse.

RoyalPrince · Mar 17, 2011

Hey, us males have feelings too and get compassion burn out too

Pigeons · Mar 17, 2011

Yah, I guess men aren't as vocal about it as women are

lckrn2pa · Mar 17, 2011

For me I think it's the ability to turn it off when I walk out the door. No matter how bad of a day I had, at 7pm I turn it off and go home and don't think about it until I clock back in my next shift. Most the women I've worked with can't do that.

ItsTheDude · Mar 17, 2011

i'll just add, that nursing is a job and i don't know anyone that likes their job all the time.

Chronis · Mar 17, 2011

Actually at least when it comes to nursing men are almost twice as likely to leave the profession as females according to this study done by the University of Pennsylvania.

"7.5 percent of new male nurses dropped out of nursing within four years of graduating from nursing school, compared to 4 percent of women"

http://www.upenn.edu/researchatpenn/article.php?435&hlt

ikarus01 · Mar 17, 2011

I burned out after a couple of years. But my strategy was to use my nursing job as a way to do something else. So as much as I hated to go to the hospital, I was also eager to go and get my paycheck because it was my way to do something else. I also have two other male friends who burned out, but one saved money to open a photo business, and the other one became a computer nurse like me, so now we're like, thank god for our nursing experience.

But thinking about it, when we were burned out, it was more about coming up with a plan to do something different, and once we knew what to do, it was more like encouraging ourselves to stick with the plan, and I do remember being thankful for having such a flexible job in terms of schedule.

azcpr · Mar 17, 2011

I worked as a hospital chaplain and part of the work I did was in the mental health department. There was as many men as woman there, dealing with care giver's burn out. I myself had to deal with it, after several weeks of dealing with dying children.

Yes men burn out too :)

Henry

ktliz · Mar 17, 2011

Could it be that men need to overcome the social stigma that nursing is a woman's job, so therefore men in nursing are generally REALLY sure that they want to be a nurse. I doubt any man wakes up one day and says, "I guess I'll go to nursing school...", unlike some women who seem to choose nursing by default. The person who became a nurse "by default" is going to suffer more burnout than the person who has a passion for nursing.

Not that I have any evidence to back this up, but it's an idea.

Mrs. Sparkle Pants · Mar 17, 2011

That's an interesting question. My dad is a pharmacist, and I swear he will die in that pharmacy someday. Obviously he has bad days at work, but he never complains about his career as a whole. I never thought about it being a gender thing.

interleukin · Mar 17, 2011

Could it be that men need to overcome the social stigma that nursing is a woman's job, so therefore men in nursing are generally REALLY sure that they want to be a nurse. I doubt any man wakes up one day and says, "I guess I'll go to nursing school...", unlike some women who seem to choose nursing by default. The person who became a nurse "by default" is going to suffer more burnout than the person who has a passion for nursing.
Not that I have any evidence to back this up, but it's an idea.

By default, do you mean because their woman genes compel them to go into nursing? It's 2011...no one goes into nursing "by default!"