male dominated areas of nursing?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Without a lot of backstory (that would probably bore you too much to respond to my post!) I would like to know if there are areas of nursing that are more predominantly male? I have seen a lot of threads lately about cattyness in nursing and the whys of nursing being predominantly female and it has me wondering.

I have heard that CRNAs are predominantly male, but is there any area with less education that is predominantly male? maybe psych nursing or some specific type of unit etc?

Specializes in ICU/ER.

Many of days/nights our ER only has only males that are working. They have to pull some of us ladies down to sit in on vag exams.

Specializes in Ortho, Neuro, Detox, Tele.

usually us males are seen as the "excitement" junkies....ER, ICUs, tele, etc...however, I prefer to learn HOW to be a nurse first...then I'll owrry about getting the excitement...

er or icu. that's where the majority of the men go.

Don't be too presumptive, male nurses can be just as catty and passive aggressive as female nurses. They also tend to be the ones that have the "Blow ups" i.e yelling, screaming, stomping around, more often than female nurses.

That being said, i agree with the other poster, ER, ICU is where many men go. Also, correctional nursing tends to have more men as well.

Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

OR,ER,ICU. This is where I usually see the guys.

I'm 31, and most of my career background has been in IT/software development and support, which is mainly a male industry. I'm much more comfortable around a bunch of guys than around women, thats all. (please dont flame me...I hesitated to post this because I'm sure most of this site is female :D and I didnt want to offend)

I have trouble relating to and feeling at ease with women like I do men. I'm that girl that was always "just one of the guys" pretty much since birth. Into video games and football and completely ill at ease talking about family and kids and clothes and who's dating who. Its really been brought home to me this past couple of weeks, as I spent a week being trained by a guy in my department, and then the next week being trained by the woman... both are nice, but very much a "guys guy" and a "born and bred southern woman".

I was just curious really. :) I'm in that stage where I'm still learning what I will want to explore after graduation, so all the little nuances are important to me (male/female ratios, staffing ratios, hours, etc)

Thank you all for taking the time to share your responses with me.

Do not fool your self, men can be just as bad as women. Trust me on this, I have inside knowledge on this subject.

Specializes in LTC/SNF, Psychiatric, Pharmaceutical.

Most of my male classmates wanted to be ER/flight nurses. A lot of men work psych as well - although there still seem to be more women in psych, I've seen a greater percentage of male nurses in psychiatric settings. Many mental health techs are male as well.

Do not fool your self, men can be just as bad as women. Trust me on this, I have inside knowledge on this subject.

lol, don't misquote me. I never said that men were not as bad :D just different. There are some big differences in how men and women view the world in general. I'm not saying either is better or worse.

Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

My experience has been ER and ICU as well.

Specializes in Government.

OP, the 5 men in my program all went into OR nursing.

I do want to say that my former career was almost all male. Transitioning into nursing (which is still at least 90% women) was odd. I found the endless baby showers etc really draining. What I figured out was that I could just be myself. If I wasn't interested in the unit social buzz, I could just do my job professionally. That really works.

No one can force anyone else to gossip, back stab or engage in other unproductive activity. And your social life is your own.

+ Add a Comment