Reccomend a gender neutral title to replace "Nurse"!

Nurses General Nursing

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Other professional titles such as mailman or stewardess have been replaced with gender neutral titles like postal worker and flight attendant, and as someone put it before on the forums here the term nurse implies an act that by definition requires having mammaries! what would you reccomend as a gender neutral replacement title?

Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.

I think as our culture moves away from strict traditional gender schemas, very few will be bothered by the label of "nurse."

It's a pointless thing to try to attempt. The term nurse has female connotations because well over 90% of nurses ARE women. ANY term you use for a job that is 90% female is going to end up with those connotations. I don't care if you change the name from nurse to "hemi-powered, semi-automatic, laser-guided health missile," if you then attach it to a profession that is overwhelmingly women, then when someone sees you walk into their hospital room, you're going to hear "oh, so you're a MALE hemi-powered, semi-automatic, laser-guided health missile."

Language can have SOME impact on perception, but it can't obliterate it. Calling me gravitationally challenged instead of fat doesn't make me look any better in a Speedo. If you got everyone in the country to agree to start calling heavily armed psychopaths "fluffy love bunnies," then people are going to start being afraid of fluffy love bunnies.

Nurse is only going to stop being considered primarily a female term when it stops being overwhelmingly a female profession.

Specializes in Med/Surg.

I don't think the term "nurse" is gender-specific........the IDEA of it invokes a female image, as a female-dominated profession, but the word itself is gender-neutral. NOT the same thing as, mailman, paperboy, etc. (I WAS a "paperboy" for a good few years, that one always felt uncomfortable to explain :p ).

Specializes in ER.

Doctors used to be only males but now the profession and the title belong to men and women equally. Nurse has now expanded to be male and female as well. Although I do think nurses who graduate with an NP degree should not be referred to as nurses but instead simply as Practitioner.

Specializes in psych, addictions, hospice, education.

Stethoscoper

Specializes in ICU.

I vote for Ruler of the Known Universe. Unassuming, I know, but it's a start!

It's a pointless thing to try to attempt. The term nurse has female connotations because well over 90% of nurses ARE women. ANY term you use for a job that is 90% female is going to end up with those connotations. I don't care if you change the name from nurse to "hemi-powered, semi-automatic, laser-guided health missile," if you then attach it to a profession that is overwhelmingly women, then when someone sees you walk into their hospital room, you're going to hear "oh, so you're a MALE hemi-powered, semi-automatic, laser-guided health missile."

Language can have SOME impact on perception, but it can't obliterate it. Calling me gravitationally challenged instead of fat doesn't make me look any better in a Speedo. If you got everyone in the country to agree to start calling heavily armed psychopaths "fluffy love bunnies," then people are going to start being afraid of fluffy love bunnies.

Nurse is only going to stop being considered primarily a female term when it stops being overwhelmingly a female profession.

I disagree. Take some job titles commonly used in corporations - "analyst" - "specialist" - "team leader". No one assumes anything about the gender of people who hold these titles.

"Registered Medical Management Facilitator" I'm in favor of another title. While nurses are often held as people to be trusted, the name is somewhat archaic. I'm not saying we shouldn't be proud of WHAT we do, but perhaps a new name would help others see how important our role in the care of patients.

I can agree with NickiLaughs on this.

I gather that OP didn't mean for this thread to be all that serious. I don't care all that deeply about the word either, but he makes a valid point. Twenty-first century nurses do much more "tech'ing" and very little "nursing" anyway. Medical Management Tech (technologist that is) sounds more up to date.

... I gather that OP didn't mean for this thread to be all that serious. I don't care all that deeply about the word either, but he makes a valid point. Twenty-first century nurses do much more "tech'ing" and very little "nursing" anyway. Medical Management Tech (technologist that is) sounds more up to date.

A) Speak for yourself! (More "teching" than "nursing," that is) -- I work in a system that uses a computerized system to administer meds, chart, etc., but am still primarily providing "hands on" nursing care to people.

B) I would never agree to a term like "medical management tech" -- in the first place, we are providing nursing care, not medical care (although some of what we do does involve carrying out physicians' orders), and, in the second place, the use of the word "medical" in the term implies (states?) that we are physicians' assistants, which we are not.

I would never support the idea of changing the title "nurse," whether because a few men who enter nursing have issues with it, "political correctness," or any other reason, and, if it ever came to that, I would happily leave nursing for good (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). It's worked just fine for the first several hundred years, and seems to be holding up just fine ... :)

"hemi-powered, semi-automatic, laser-guided health missile,"

That

Is

IT!

I was all prepared to side with the "call me nurse" crowd...but you won me over. ******* awesome.

A) Speak for yourself! (More "teching" than "nursing," that is) -- I work in a system that uses a computerized system to administer meds, chart, etc., but am still primarily providing "hands on" nursing care to people.

It may be true that you are primarily delivering what is traditionally considered nursing care... comfort, hygiene, symptom management, assistance w/ADL, therapeutic listening, caring for a patient through their journey with illness as opposed to treating their illness, etc.

For many nurses, though, much of the hands on, traditionally understood nursing care is done by the aides... positioning prevent skin breakdown, assistance with bathing and other hygiene, ambulating patients, linen changes, holding the emesis basin for a vomiting patient, etc. Meanwhile, patients have an abundance of physiologic needs that need monitoring and responsive medical care, and those needs generally take priority in a nurse's work. So if a nurse's job responsibilities are heavily weighted to the medical aspects of care such that other nursing care takes lower priority and gets delegated to assistive personnel, then would you say that person is still primarily practicing nursing? If so, then much of nursing IS medical care. If not, then many nurses are practicing something other than nursing.

Back to the OP's question... I don't have a good suggestion, but I do agree that it could be a good change if a someone came up with a good replacement for the generic term "nurse." It's not very meaningful by itself. Think of the term "teacher." If someone says "I'm a teacher" it really doesn't tell you much at all about what they do. They might teach pre-school, elementary, jr high English, HS advanced physics, piano, dancing, cooking, Sunday school, professional accounting seminars, etc. Similarly, saying that someone is "a nurse" doesn't really tell much either. They might work on an inpatient oncology unit, an outpatient dialysis clinic, as a school nurse, in occupational health, as a medication nurse in an LTC facility. The thing is, with teaching, as soon as someone adds a bit more info "Kindergarten teacher" "history teacher" "piano teacher" the generaly public has a better idea of what they do. With nursing, added info often doesn't help clarify "med-surg nurse" huh? "rehab nurse" huh? "psych nurse" huh? And the same simplistic image remains in people's heads... nurses take vital signs, administer medications, ask if you need anything and call the doctor if there's a problem.

just thoughts... I find such questions intriguing!

Should this thread be in the "Male Nurses" forum?

(I'd much prefer if it were called the "Men in Nursing" forum)

Specializes in Tele/PCU/ICU/Stepdown/HH Case Management.

still laughing my gluteus maximus over "fluffy love bunnies"!

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