Male nursing students can do assessments on the women?

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( sorry the heading ment to say CANT do not CAN do) Hello, this is my first post so ill introduce myself. Im a 25/m ER/Trauma phlebotomist and I will be entering nursing school this fall ( after a 2 year wait). I have pretty much made up my mind that the ER will be the best fit for me as im the type of person who can not sit still :). Anyway, I have several male friends currently in nursing school ( some first year some about to graduate) that have made it known to me that 1) I will, being a guy, have at most maybe 3 other guys in a class of 35 and that leads to 2) 4 out of the 5 friends said that they were not allowed to preform assessments on the other female students, however, the women where able to preform mock assessments on the men. Now correct me if im wrong ,but wont I be working on BOTH men and women in the hospital lol. This is not the first time I have heard of such a thing concerning instructors having this bent to the male students. I hope one day this divide that still seems to prevail even in nursing schools ( much less the real world setting) will disappear ,but for now what is your thinking about this? Thanks again.

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Specializes in ICU.

The time that you spend practicing on each other will be minimal compared to the time you will be working with actual patients. As long as they are not limiting the gender of patients you are working with I wouldn't worry about it. The school likely had some kind of sexual harrassment complaint so decided that in laboratory situations the divide should be made to prevent liability.

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Specializes in Geriatrics and emergency medicine.

Hate to discourage you, but my husband was in LPN school, but after not one of the female OB patients that he was assigned to would permit him to do assessments, he dropped out. It was more the SO of the patients, but never the less,,,he still was not given permission to even view a birth

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Cardiac, ICU.

That is so silly. Women allow MALE doctors to perform assessments on them and the spouses of those women would allow the same thing.

And I don't think there is a guy alive that finds childbirth arousing.

I really hope I'm right about that.....:uhoh21: :uhoh21:

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Specializes in Orthosurgery, Rehab, Homecare.

The guys in our class "practiced" with us and us with them. Our assessment didn't include breast of genital assessment, but all the rest. It wasn't a big deal. The guys in my OB rotation got to observe and assess the pts. The instructor approached a few and found ones that would be cofortable with the guy just like she sought permission for us female students to work with the patient. She might have had to ask a few more, but they got the full experience. (we didn't do station/dilation checks) There were 2 RNs who are male on the L&D unit. I live in a liberal area, that may have something to do with it, but it didn't seem a huge issue for them.

Good luck, and welcome to the profession. Don't let your friends discourage you.

~Jen

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

Back in 1982 our four male students were welcomed in OB---maybe because unit was one of the first with rooming in and some LDRP rooms in Delaware.

Would have expected fiull experience by now for all male nursing students.

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Specializes in SRNA.

Well, I don't do my OB rotation for a few more weeks, but my clinical group is 4 males and 4 females, so I hope half of us aren't doing anything!

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Specializes in SRNA.

But as far nursing school goes, we practiced skills on each other in lab.

At the hospital, I haven't had any issues assessing female patients.

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Specializes in Hospice, Med/Surg, ICU, ER.

As a student, I had ONE husband that didn't want me to assess his wife on OB rotation; that's it.

As a new nurse, I have had no issues with female patients at all.

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No actual advice here, but have a cute story! I work on a peds/gyn surgical unit as a HUC. We are a teaching hospital, so we have residents from the University of Minnesota all the time. One time this very good looking male resident was giving discharge instructions to a wonderfully colorful lady of 92. When he got to the routine instruction about nothing in the lady parts for 6 weeks, she busted out laughing and said in a booming voice (she was HoH)... "Sonny, I haven't had anything in there for 40 years, I'm not starting that nonsense NOW!" The entire unit was stifling giggles all day about that one. Poor guy came out of the room red as a beet!

BTW... in my opinion, I'd rather have male nurses for myself... every one I know is fabulous!

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Specializes in Critical Care,Recovery, ED.

Actually over the years I have had more male patients refuse my care then female ones. And yes the spouses can sometimes ( but rarer now then say 30 years ago) be a problem.

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Specializes in Nurses who are mentally sicked.

If the patient is alert and oriented to everything. Make sure you do it according to the policy...in some facilities, you can do the whole body assessment, except the "private area." Anyway, in this case, I recommend you to do it in the presence of a female co-worker. Sometimes, one accusation; you will be out forever!

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