Help me, I am African Amercian male nurse

Nurses General Nursing

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Tweety, BSN, RN

34,250 Posts

Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.

I think for us as whites (and predominently female) to say "it's no problem where I am" isn't what he's looking for. It sounds to me like he wants to hear from other AA male nurses, a minority within a minority and I personally don't know how that feels, just because I happen to know an AA male nurse or two.

Best wishes.

PurifiedH2O

10 Posts

i am not concerned about the negative aspects of working as or with an AA male nurses. i looking for postive experiences of how much of an impact AA males nurses from past until now. it could personal influences on the community, family, or global. Did it change any type of mental stigma? I understand some never worked with AA male nurses. It is inspiring to here stories about individual experiences.

leslie :-D

11,191 Posts

i am not concerned about the negative aspects of working as or with an AA male nurses. i looking for postive experiences of how much of an impact AA males nurses from past until now. it could personal influences on the community, family, or global. Did it change any type of mental stigma? I understand some never worked with AA male nurses. It is inspiring to here stories about individual experiences.

purified, you might consider posting your question in the males nurses forum, also...

best of everything to you.

leslie

PurifiedH2O

10 Posts

i tried to but they said i could not duplicate this thread in another forum.

VegRN

303 Posts

;)I hope this title does not scare anyone away or upset anyone. My goal is to find out how AA male nurses (LPN, ASN, BSN, or NP) deal with various challenges like dealing with female nurses (older or younger) on the floor, dealing with other ethincally diverse population of male nurses and doctors, racism if any on the floor, differences with wages and work performance, and balancing family time (for the married men with one wife and children). How do you respond and resolve conflict bet. two other coworkers? Bet. you and coworker? I also want to know from other nurses who are not of African-descent their truthful work experience with AA male nurses. THIS IS NOT A DEBATE BET. RACIAL GROUPS OR SHOULD IT START ANY RACIAL BIAS but information on experiences with culturally diverse community of nurses.;)

My honest work experience with male nurses. Now mind you this is just the ones I have come into contact with. The ones I have come into contact with tend to not feel it is their job to bath pts, give peri care etc. Now some female nurses feel this way as well but of the 5 male nurses I work with now, this is the common thread. Yes, we have tech assistance but they aren't assigned to every pt. Techs complain about it, other nurses complain about it etc.

Female nurses have their bad points as well. Again, not all but in my experience. Lets just say that it is refreshing to work with male nurses because they aren't catty, backstabbing and mean. Male nurses tend to get way less into the emotional stuff.

As far as pay goes, I have heard that male nurses on average make more money than female nurses even though it is a female dominated profession. At my institution, pay rate is based on years of experience and it is very rigid. Everyone with 10 years of experience makes the same (not including differentials).

One thing I would caution you (or any nurse) on is non being supportive of pts splitting staff. For example, you and the pt are of the same race and the pt is making mean, untrue comments about others that happen to be of another race. "Splitting" can happen with white/ white, AA/AA, philipino/philipino etc and it doesn't feel very good for the person/people that are taking the brunt of the abuse (also not good for working relationships). We have had situations in the past at my institution where this has occurred with various pt/staff races. Staff have to stand as one and support each other. Of course if the pt has a valid complaint, it should be addressed but racist comments towards members of any race should not be tolerated. In my practice, I have heard comments about various other races (when the pt shares my race) and my response has been to smile and say, "we are lucky to have so and so, they are a very competent nurse". Always shuts the ignorant fool up.

Resolving conflict. Just be a professional about it. If there is conflict, it is best to confront the person and talk it out. Things can really get out of hand sometimes with the different way people interpret things. One thing to remember, most of the time if someone is in a rotten mood, it is not your fault. It is usually because they have some other stresses in their life and/or they are just in a foul mood all of the time.

I hope you found things in these posts helpful. Welcome aboard. I am glad you have chose nursing and I hope you find it a rewarding profession.

P_RN, ADN, RN

6,011 Posts

Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

This is one case where a Nurse is a Nurse is good enough for me. I recently had a terrifying visit to the ER, cath lab and pacemaker OR. Believe me I loved every Nurse I came in contact with. None better. Some were male, some were AA all were NURSES.

leslie :-D

11,191 Posts

i tried to but they said i could not duplicate this thread in another forum.

then you may consider asking a moderator to move this thread to the male nurses forum.

no guarantees you'll receive more responses but that forum does attract a good number of our male nurses.

leslie

nursemike, ASN, RN

1 Article; 2,362 Posts

Specializes in Rodeo Nursing (Neuro).

We've got all kinds of diversity up here. We have Protestants AND Catholics.

;)

Last time I saw a figure, WV had a population that was 3% black, and less than that in rural areas. We also have an Hispanic community--he coaches our football team.

Being in a university town, it's more diverse than average, although it sometimes seems you're as likely to meet an African as an African-American.

I have met a few black nurses, including a couple of males, and they haven't appeared to encounter many problems. In a state where our senior Senator was once, briefly, a KKK member and has made some notorious gaffes, there doesn't seem to be a lot of racial hatred, though I think there is an unfortunate amount of prejudice. A lot of the folk around here haven't really known many people of color. I guess I haven't really, either--in my previous job, I invited a black co-worker and friend to join several of us who were going bowling, and I was taken aback when he wasn't sure a bowling alley was a safe place for a black man to be (it was).

Anyway, now that I'm a male nurse, I guess I know all there is to know about being part of a minority. Well, maybe not. But I do wish the OP luck. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but my impression has been that nurses may be a little more accepting of diversity than the general population. I hope that's the case.

Specializes in Licensed Practical Nurse.

well i'm aa myself and at my facility there are male nurses, two aa males and they are both good nurses, very respectful! just be yourself and things will work out fine, don't let a group bias, if one exist hold u back!

Lynda Lampert, RN

15 Articles; 101 Posts

Specializes in telemetry, med-surg, post op, ICU.

Well, I know that you are looking for uplifting stories regarding AA nurses, but I thought I would put up a story about something you may face.

Before I started school to be a nurse, I worked as a CNA at a nursing home. One of the other CNA was this young AA guy . . . and we all just loved him! Actually, we loved all of our guy CNAs. The guys we had there were hard working and gentle, and this guy was no exception. One of our alzheimer patients developed this enormous crush on this guy and kept calling him all sorts of sweet names involving the word chocolate. Geez, he was embarassed! But she didn't know any better and we teased him about it a bit.

There was this one lady, unfortunately, that had a problem with him. I was busy working on my end of the assignment when this guy (I wish I could remember his name, honestly, I can't) came to the door and said, "I need your help. 102 needs to go to the bathroom." I looked at him quizzically. She was his patient. Why was he coming to get me? He answered before I asked, "She would not let me."

Now, there are some older females that absolutely refuse to have care done by a male staff member. I've never supported this, but I can see both sides of this issue. I thought that this may be the problem. As I was walking to the room, I thought, no, she's let other guys take care of her. So, I went in and took her to the bathroom and asked her why she wouldn't let the guy care for her after she has had male aides before. "I don't care if he's man. He's black!" Now I was really confused. "But you let the other girls who are black take care of you and you let men take care of you, why not him? He's really good!" "I just don't ever want him to come into my room again. You know how they are."

Immediately my eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?" She wouldn't talk after that. Just to say don't let him in my room.

Ah, I remembered his name! Although I won't post it here for privacy's sake. We'll call him B. Unfortunately, B told another CNA on our floor that he needed to switch this lady off of his assignment. She wanted to know why and he told her. She was also AA and she had a bit of a temper. She went down and confronted the lady. Now, I don't know what was said, but I don't believe this CNA would have threatened the resident. However, that was what she claimed and this second CNA was fired. B was not allowed to provide care for the resident.

I never looked at that lady the same way again. I just couldn't. I even went to the manager of the home and wrote down what I witnessed to try and discredit the resident for being racist. I was upset the other CNA was fired. She was my preceptor. It was hard taking care of that resident after that.

So, that's my story of a male in a nursing role. He was fine with the other residents, even if some of them could be wary at first. They loved him, though, because he took excellent care of them and loved them back. That was unusual in a young man of 19 years. He could have been getting into trouble or just not caring about his job, but he did. He was always there working overtime and volunteering when we were short. I don't know what became of him as I moved on into school, but I remember him as a darned good CNA, one I was thrilled to work with, who was treated like less than a human by some close minded jerkess. I hurt for him and my preceptor. It was just wrong.

Sorry to go on for so long, but I think that it shows an aspect of the reality of being an AA male in a health care world.

Iona

EmmaG, RN

2,999 Posts

I think for us as whites (and predominently female) to say "it's no problem where I am" isn't what he's looking for. It sounds to me like he wants to hear from other AA male nurses, a minority within a minority and I personally don't know how that feels, just because I happen to know an AA male nurse or two.

Best wishes.

True. I posted my experience because of this part of his post, though: "I also want to know from other nurses who are not of African-descent their truthful work experience with AA male nurses. "

Tweety, BSN, RN

34,250 Posts

Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.
True. I posted my experience because of this part of his post, though: "I also want to know from other nurses who are not of African-descent their truthful work experience with AA male nurses. "

Duh....my apologies.

To the op, let us know if you want to move the post. There's more traffic here, but if you want to hear from males specifically we can move it, although there are a lot of females posting on the male forum as well.

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