Ever had a patient refuse you based on your gender?

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It happened to me twice in one night, the funny thing is that it wasn't the patients refusing me it was their husbands. One of them was really rude about it, I felt like asking them if they had any other prejudices that I should be aware of when finding a replacement nurse. It just strikes me as being silly, most of them have male MD's, the majority of the Gyno's in my area are also male, and that is way more personal than anything that I'm going to be doing. So why is it such a taboo to have a male nurse. I know that some people have the belief that nursing is a woman's profession but men have been involved in nursing from the very start ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_nursing ). If you don't want me to provide your care because you don't like the way that I do it, then I can understand. However, I don't use my member in the performance of my job duties, so don't refuse me simply because I have one.

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Specializes in Addiction / Pain Management.

Just once in LTC, little old ladies have their modesty...

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Specializes in Cardiac.

I have never been COMPLETELY refused, for peri care/BR trips, yes.

I had a pts husband practically yelling at me and said that I would NOT be providing peri care to his wife who was on BR post cardiac cath. :mad: THAT was irritating.

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Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

Nope, not yet anyways.

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Specializes in Peri-Op.

Not yet.

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haha dude that literally happens to me like twice a week no exaggeration. I think its becuase theyre embarassed to have a male do certain things...like peri care.

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Specializes in Addiction / Pain Management.
haha dude that literally happens to me like twice a week no exaggeration. I think its becuase theyre embarassed to have a male do certain things...like peri care.

How old is the patient and how old are you?

I'm 40 and very non-threatenin to a typical little old lady in a nursing home.

Now, with hovering mother of a 22 year old standing close by; that can be a challenge to do certain procedures

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Specializes in ER, Prehospital, Flight.

Yup, happens on occassion. If thats what they are comfortable with, I have no problem getting a female.

I go as far as getting female nurses to do my foley\peri care stuff with the younger females. It just makes sense they would feel more comfortable. My elderly pts never seem to care. OB pts in school were 50\50, seriously.

I am a 6'1 200lb athletic, militant looking dude. May have something to do with it. I've been told I don't look friendly. I am though, I promise.

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For my OB clinicals we are supposed to see C-Sections and/or lady partsl births. However for the first three weeks there was a dry spell and no one was well..delivering on our clinical day. When it was my turn to finally see a C-Section the mother refused me since I was a male but what annoyed the hell out of me was that the OB was a male.

I didn't get to see a c-section until it was the second to the last week of clinical and the mother who allowed me to witness it ended up to be a very important person to the hospital so it was cool.

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Specializes in Emergency.

Every once in a while a lol will ask for "the girls" for the bedpan and peri-care although when i've said "nobody available but me" they've always been ok with it. Straight caths on the non-emergent young ladies i pass on to a female colleague.

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Specializes in RN.

As an aide I did have a few different ladies, very politely, request a female. Hasn't happened yet as a nurse but I won't be surprised if it does.

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I don't even know what the big deal is. Males are the ones who have the burden of being placed in an embarrassing situation; not the females. Female gossip is brutal regarding male counterparts. When it comes to female parts, there isn't anything to really talk about anyway.

Young female patients do not seem to have an issue with a young male nurse, even for pericare. Their parents are the ones who refuse it. When it comes to pericare, I'd be happy not to do it anyway.

I've been refused by more female nurses than patients during my OB rotation. Most of the nurses ignored the male students but we didn't really care unless it involved a c-sect/OR. I have had a few young parents during my rotation who didn't seem to care whether I was present or not.

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