MALE Nurse, Female Police Officer, Female Dr.

Corvette Guy · May 26, 2006

I find the term "Male Nurse" discriminatory. If you were stopped by the police for speeding, would you call the police officer "Oh, you are a female police officer!" In taking an order would you identify the attending as a "Female Doctor!" Would you refer to a firefighter or paramedic as a female medic or Firefighter. Try it and see what happens, that is mysoginist.
Lets take it a step further. Oh, you are a nurse of color. Is it ok to call a nurse the "African American Nurse or Asian Nurse etc."
We are all brothers and sisters in the profession.

I am a Male RN, therefore do not consider the term "Male Nurse" to be discriminatory in the least bit, LOL.

Corvette Guy · May 27, 2006

True, but other professions do acknowledge differences and they do so not to be discriminatory but, as others have mentioned, to acknowledge that diversity exists within a field dominated by one group. For example, female Marines are called "Women Marines"(WMs) by the Corps due to the fact that the US Marine Corps is 95% male.
The WMs are no more or no less Marines. So, for fun I call the males M&Ms.

Plain or peanut? :lol2:

Seriously, I enjoyed your post & thought it was a perfect example R/T the Thread. BTW, I'm a USMC Vet [1980-1988]. In retrospect, now being a member of the Army Nurse Corps [ANC] I can report no distinction is made between male & female nurses in the Army Medical Dept. [AMEDD] because we are all ANC Soldiers.

Unable to cite my source, yet last I read male nurses make up 34% of the AD ANC. It is a completely different world for a male nurse in the ANC compared to civilian community. Some of you male nurses might want to consider the ANC for a career?

Roy Fokker, BSN, RN · May 27, 2006

Some of you male nurses might want to consider the ANC for a career?

I would love to but I can't.

Armed forces nurses aren't enlisted men.

And I can't become an officer (yet )

So that nixes it

Corvette Guy · May 27, 2006

For those of you that have no problem being refered to as a "male nurse", history applauds you. From the Nightingale doctrine that only "women can be true nurses" and that nursing "is an art that comes naturally only to women," (Evans, 2003) to the ban on men in army nursing in the first half of the last century (Army Nurse Corps Historical Documentation, 2003) to the current under representation through overt discriminatory practices that have caused a gross under representation of men in the ranks of nursing (Yang, et al, 2004), to present day when the vast majority feel that the term nurse, when applied to men, indeed needs a clarifier.
Who knows, with this way of thinking and acceptance of the term "male nurse" maybe in a hundred years or so, nursing will be represented by 7% men instead of 5-6% as it now stands today, up from 4% in 1966 (Men in American Nursing, 1997).
For those of you that support the term "male nurse", you should feel proud, as it is takes courage in today's society to aid in facilitating and perpetuating a gender stereotype.
References
Evans, J. (2003, November 28). Men nurses: a historical and feminist perspective. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 47, 321-328. Retrieved February 15, 2006, from EBSCOhost database.
Men in American Nursing (1997). Retrieved February 14, 2006, from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/
Office of Medical History, Army Hurse Corps Historical Documentation (2003, January). Proud to serve: The evolution of Male Army Nurse Corps Officers. Retrieved February 16, 2006,
Yang, C., Gau, M., Shiau, S., Hu, W., & Shih, F. (2004, March 10). Professional career development for male nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 48, 642-650. Retrieved February 15, 2006, from EBSCOhost database.

Sir, I respectfully take offense to your logic that those such as I which are proud of the title Male RN are perpetuating a gender stereotype.

Furthermore, your reference to men in the military as nurses is only partly true. Men served as nurses in one capacity or another from the Revolutionary War until 1901. Ironically, with the founding of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901 men were excluded by law from such service. It was not until 9 AUG 1955, when President Eisenhower signed into law H.R. 2559, that Male RNs were authorized reserve commissions in the ANC. In 1961, Ohio Representative Frances Payne Bolton introduced a bill to Congress to authorize regular commissions for Male RNs.

However, 11 years passed before Male RNs were to receive regular commissions in the ANC. Due to efforts made by the 12th Chief of the ANC, COL Mildred Irene Clark, on 30 SEP 1966 [Public law 89-609] authorized regular commissions for Male RNs. So, eleven years elapsed between the time the first Male RN was commissioned in the ANC in the USAR & when Male RNs were allowed to apply for a regular commission.

*Source from the book written by Mary T. Sarnecky, COL ®, USA, A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps [iSBN 0-8122-3502-9].

May I suggest you read this Thread/post by Thunderwolf...

Men in Nursing Timeline Thread

BTW, IMHO the term Male RN supports the nursing profession as a gender neutral profession by giving recognition to the fact that males can also be nurses.

Corvette Guy · May 27, 2006

I would love to but I can't.
Armed forces nurses aren't enlisted men.
And I can't become an officer (yet )
So that nixes it

In the Army Medical Dept. [AMEDD] an LVN/LPN [91WM6] is in fact an enlisted member of the Army.

Corvette Guy · May 27, 2006

i understand your dilemna but I think you are a little off base. People most certainly do comment on other female professionals who enter the male dominated world. As a retired NYC police officer and now an RN, I can personally attest to the fact that my sexuality was often a topic of conversation. I was insulted and humiliated as a result of being a female cop by both the public and my peers. I was called some of the nastiest curses that you can imagine by people on the street. I simply chose to ignore it as I am a professional and have a job to do. As a matter of fact, I was required to ignore it. See we were given sensitivity training which supposedly trained us for the abusive public. I personally would have been pleased if all they called me was the "female cop". As far a female doctors are concerned, I have patients who request male doctors and won't let a female near them because they feel they are incompetent. I have witnessed patients request white doctors. You are not alone and you certainly are not discriminated against. Sometimes people just call it like they see it. If I see a red saab driving down the street, I will say to my husband, hey honey, "look at that red saab, isn't it beautiful". after all, the saab is red.

:yelclap:

Corvette Guy · May 27, 2006

Actually, this particular board is run and owned by a GUY, a 'male nurse', to be exact.
I have no particular problem w/ the phrase 'male nurse'. I understand that it is a changing paradigm and one of the effects of being part of the change is that expectations sometimes lag behind reality.
It's not that big a deal, if you ask me.
And there are issues that men face in nursing that women do not. I don't think that it's 'discriminatory' to form one of many forums for the purpose of discussing those particular issues. The purpose of the forums is NOT segregation; it is to have a place to discuss different perspectives. The particular issues of being a man in what is still a female dominated profession is one such perspective that deserves a place for discussion.
~faith,
Timothy.

:yelclap: :yelclap: :yelclap:

Corvette Guy · May 27, 2006

For the first time ever, I got called a "male nurse". Just yesterday.
The person who said it was a retired RN.
I DID ask her about it and she said something to the effect of "Oh! I never thought of it that way!"
I'm pretty sure she won't be saying that no more
"All it needs is a little persuasion...."

So, being called a male nurse bothers you? I find it a compliment when someone calls me a male nurse.

Corvette Guy · May 27, 2006

personally, I hate.... no actually... I HATE the term nurse. Nurse does have another meaning -- breastfeeding; and I believe to my core that that is a contributor to the nursing shortage (what adolescent male with any self-respect is going to even think about looking into a career as a nurse?)
Even I -- at age 34 had a devil of a time getting over that intellectually !
I will never refer to myself as a nurse. I will call myself an RN, or a licensed health care professional. I will never call myself a nurse.
I already wrote a term paper on this subject and my professor said he wanted a copy to edit and perhaps submit for publication. No word yet on whether it will be published; but contact me if you'd like a copy...will be more than happy to send.

Along the lines of your reasoning is why I like being called a Male RN, or male nurse.

58flyer · May 27, 2006

i understand your dilemna but I think you are a little off base. People most certainly do comment on other female professionals who enter the male dominated world. As a retired NYC police officer and now an RN, I can personally attest to the fact that my sexuality was often a topic of conversation. I was insulted and humiliated as a result of being a female cop by both the public and my peers. I was called some of the nastiest curses that you can imagine by people on the street. I simply chose to ignore it as I am a professional and have a job to do. As a matter of fact, I was required to ignore it. See we were given sensitivity training which supposedly trained us for the abusive public. I personally would have been pleased if all they called me was the "female cop". As far a female doctors are concerned, I have patients who request male doctors and won't let a female near them because they feel they are incompetent. I have witnessed patients request white doctors. You are not alone and you certainly are not discriminated against. Sometimes people just call it like they see it. If I see a red saab driving down the street, I will say to my husband, hey honey, "look at that red saab, isn't it beautiful". after all, the saab is red.

I'm sorry to hear that you had any kind of trouble with your peers as a police officer. Sure, you expect that kind of stuff from an ignorant public. I remember as a new officer fresh out of field training I was paired with a female officer coming back to patrol from a vice assignment. We were as opposite as you can imagine, she a husky black female and me a skinny redneck white boy. Our beats were side by side in one of the highest crime rate areas in a major city. I came to know her as someone I could trust my life with and the feeling was mutual. That trust was forged in fire against the best the criminal element had to offer. She remains a trusted friend to this day. So I had a positive experience with female officers right out of the gate. People are individuals, whether they are cops, or nurses, or whatever. Some are great and some are bad. Sure, I had bad experiences with female officers, but most were good.

You are not alone with the discrimination issue. I was accepted into the ASN program at my junior college. Right away one of the instructors took me aside and told me I was not welcome there and would probably fail the program despite my 3.9 gpa. With that and similar "advice" I dropped out and stayed with law enforcement. Now in my 29th year of LE and in a 2nd career I'm not regretting it at all but I may still get around to doing this nursing thing yet. Good Luck.

battpos · May 30, 2006

Along the lines of your reasoning is why I like being called a Male RN, or male nurse.

Mr. Corvette Guy,

we seem to have some common ground, we dislike the term nurse (actually, I abhor the term nurse). The difference is that you are content to refer to yourself as a "male RN", while I propose in my term paper a completely new term for the profession -- in the meantime, I would pacify myself by calling myself an RN or a health care professional (at the moment I can only call myself a BSN student).

The problem I see with calling myself a "male RN" is that it presupposes that there is a default sexual gender (female) that would normally go together with the term "RN."

As in: if "RN" then practitioner MUST BE female; UNLESS "male RN"

I will state again; do not dismiss this as just a matter of semantics...

the repercussions are very real: it is an enormous barrier for male adolescents' languaging and imaging such that they would never consider to pursue a career in nursing. This adds to our nursing shortage (we must recruit new blood not just from the female portion of our society -- a portion by the way, that has had significant number of other career options open up to them in modern times).

You mentioned in one of your posts that the army nursing corps lifted their ban in 1955. Well, then that's 50 years in which the army has had their masculinizing influence on the nursing profession -- and what is there to show for it? True -- within the army and other military nurse corps, the percentage of men in nursing is much higher than the civilian anemic percentage of 5 or 6% -- but it is still woefully short of being 50%-50%.

I would also venture to say that the sheer raw numbers between the civilian and military nurses makes the higher percentage of males in military nursing rather insignificant. In other words, if all military nurses were to become instantaneously civilian nurses -- I venture to say that resultant civilian nurse population would still not surpass 10% male.

thank you for considering my point of view

Battpos = Batterypositive

Darth Nightingale · May 30, 2006

Dude,
It's just a word. Words change meanings and connotation. Once upon a time the "N-word" was about the worst thing that an African-American could be called. And then Dr. Dre et.al. came out with NWA and took ownership of the word and made it their own (and yes sometimes there is an "R" on the end and no I don't use the word)
Once upon a time gay meant happy, faggot mean shovel.. and so did a spade come to think of it. Words are just words. Unless you let it be offensive to you.. it's not, period.
I like the term nurse. I plan on being part of those that define the term for the next generation and not being defined by it.
Just my humble opinion,