Does being a Male open more doors in the nursing profession

nnicolee · Dec 24, 2009

I just heard that the RN program Im planning to apply to recently added this Diversity Program where males and people of other races can be accepted if they arent accepted the regular way based on points of grades and our entrance test.

So if you are unable to pass the same test everyone else has to pass in order to get into nursing school they will lower their standards for you? Once you get admitted and start to fail your finals do they lower the passing grade on those also? You can't get a C so they lower passing to a D? Kind of sounds like your average affimative action program. As a guy, that is not kind of support I am looking for.

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. What school is this? Trying to get their male/ diverse quota up for the next incoming class I see..... I'm so sick of hearing people play the race card continuously. It's not because you're Black (sorry politically incorrect... African American), Albino (woops I mean because you suffer from hypopigmentary cogenital disorder), "Hispanic," Inuit, don't forget Alien either... that you didn't get accepted.... It's because you and about one thousand other people are vying for the same spot.

I'm a white female and NOTHING I repeat nothing has ever been handed to me... I'm not swimming in money (never have been) ... born to a blue color single parent household... CAN I GET A BREAK PLEASE?

BeenOff · Dec 24, 2009

No nicolemsm you cannot get a break. You are blessed with beautiful white skin already, what else more do you want?

ljonm · Dec 25, 2009

supposedly, the government or something gave the school a million dollars to start the program.

From what I hear, the program had a lot of diversity already before they started the program which was last semester so I have no idea why they started it.

I plan on getting in the program the regular way because it wouldnt feel right getting in knowing somebody who was more deserving than you didnt.

nursenow · Dec 25, 2009

Do you mind saying what school this program is at?

ljonm · Dec 25, 2009

School is Florida State College at Jacksonville.

Used to be called Florida Community College at Jacksonville just a year ago.

jakolbfleisch · Apr 18, 2010

Any job you get or school you get into that wasn't based on merit or life experience is an insult to anyone that has worked hard to get where they are. If that college is still using that system for admitting students it should loose accreditation and was as refund all application fees to those not accepted but qualified now the less. Just what I want, a school pushing through a bunch of folks not up to par working in the healthcare field. Al lI can say is good luck with their NCLEX pass rate.

Anoetos, BSN, RN · Apr 19, 2010

Here is the top-secret, must-not-be-spoken, thought process as I understand it, whether it is accurate or not I will leave to your judgment. I do not know of any studies to bear any of this out but it is something like the "received wisdom", again, as I understand it from conversations with certain people who shall remain nameless but who might also be expected to know something.

Hospitals are asking for the female : male ratio in nursing to change. There are a lot of reasons for this, some of which may be impolitic to discuss, but it is a fact.

Hospitals want more male nurses. This desire has been communicated to the nursing schools and deans of nursing schools are accommodating them. There has been a spate of advertising targeting males for the profession and I would expect there to be more forthcoming.

But I do NOT think that this means that underqualified males will be taking seats from qualified females, here's why:

Every year thousands of adequately qualified females just don't quite make the cut because there are so many good female candidates and only so many seats, so what it COULD mean is that if the ratios hold true (i.e. there are usually more qualified candidates than seats, regardless of gender) and there are still significantly larger numbers of female applicants than male, that the bar is set quantitatively lower for males than for females, but not qualitatively.

In short, the same level of qualified applicants will be accepted, regardless of gender, but the number of qualified female applicants being passed over may increase marginally, as qualified males are selected for available seats in order to comply with hospital demand.

There it is in all its post-politically correct hideousness. If true, I would probably be irritated if I were a female, but as a male I welcome it both personally and philosophically since it represents a softening of the strangle hold women have had on the profession for generations.

klarck · Apr 20, 2010

The suggestion that there's a super-secret imposed ratio in effect could be verified with some simple statistics performed on readily available govt employment and educational data. Hungry, enterprising lawyers are plentiful and if sex discrimination was really going on I think we'd have already seen a class action suit or two on behalf of our female peers. No, there are no more doors open to men than women in nursing.

To overextend the metaphor however, men knock tend to knock at the door a bit differently. I think men interview differently and, once hired, play the office/clinical politics game more aggressively than women. Men tend to puff up qualifications at an employment interview more so than women and aren't bashful about talking themselves up. Men jump at serving on committees and changing established working conditions instead of working around limitations. They're more assertive at performance reviews and turn evaluations into two-way negotiations.

Broad generalizations, but they tend to explain some of the anecdotes in this thread.

Anoetos, BSN, RN · Apr 20, 2010

Klarck,

My references to secrecy were meant to be facetious. I tried very hard to offer that as conjecture based on conversations. You were quite right to file it under the heading "anecdotal" because it represents the product of thinking about these conversations and the comparison of subjectively evaluated information.

I am not sure I totally agree with your generalizations about how men perform in the work place though. There are certainly differences but I am not at all sure that the ones you've hi-lited are as broadly seen as you think they are. What you are describing sounds entirely too "John Wayne" and doesn't relate to what I have seen which is men quite capable of behaving like whipped dogs under even the least micromanagerial or tyrannical leadership. You may be closer to the mark in interviewing of course, I don't know what women generally interview like.

It's an interesting point though.

That said, it cannot be seriously denied that hospitals are asking for more male nurses and that this will in some way drive the marketing of nursing as a profession to men as well as motivate nursing schools to somehow increase the number of male applicants accepted each year. It may be (and one would hope) that it is as simple as increasing the number of seats available.

nursenow · Apr 20, 2010

Just as I suspected. There IS a conspiracy to hire more men. I always thought that guy wlith the dark glasses and black suit passing out leaflets at the park seemed to give more of them to men than women. One time I took one from him and they were information sheets on how to sign up at the local nursing school. He actually tried to hand me two of them which was really strange. Now I realize it is because I am a guy!

Anoetos, BSN, RN · Apr 20, 2010

thanks for the lightening up...I know I needed it.

Rednights · Apr 20, 2010

Boyfriend and girlfriend. Relatively the same experience level. Both applied to the same hospitals. Guy has had 3 interviews so far. Girlfriend only 1.

Take it as you wish, only evidence we have is anecdotal at this point.