Males and Technology

nursemike, ASN, RN · Jan 8, 2008

Is it true that males are more tech savvy than females, especially in the nursing field? When I was doing my clinicals, I noticed that. You know every unit has this one male nurse who is called for everything...lol...I was wondering if it is just the hospital I was in or pretty much the same across the nation or is it just a general perception?

I don't think it's a matter of being more savvy--just more fascinated. Whether it's innate or conditioned, we seem to like gadgets, while women seem to tolerate them.

I was at Wal-Mart awhile back, and as the cashier was ringing up my purchase, she stopped, looked at an item, looked at the price, looked at the item again, and said, "$98 for a remote control--are you kidding me?" But it's very cool. You can hook it to your computer and go online to download info for all your equipment, plus the buttons light up, and yes, it's true I only ever watch two channels (Comedy Central or Sci-Fi) but it also runs my DVD and CD players, and--hey, you aren't my wife! Heck, I'm not even married!

But I digress. I'm lucky to work with some women who are very sharp, very experienced nurses, and I'm not sorry that our unit doesn't have a lot of highly technical equipment. I have noticed that they take a different approach to unfamiliar machines--I tend to be analytic, while they tend to "poke and hope." Still, after our facility changed to new transducers for our ventric drains, it took about six of us to hook one up, one morning, and in the end we were all pretty much reduced to trial and error.

styRN · Jan 8, 2008

Of course it's true!

We guys call on our female co-workers all the time to find us things when we think we've looked everywhere and we return the favour by fixing anything on the unit that's broken :)

(Or at least we'll take a crack at it, maybe take it apart before we realize we shouldn't have) It's still quicker than waiting for IT or maintenance dept to get around to doing something.

Seriously, though - ego? I don't know. I will perpetuate the stereotype and say that I am pretty mechanically and technologically inclined and keep a small toolbox on my unit for anything from loose w/c pedals to jammed printers and have had to reinstall some software on our unit's network just so our staff could do their documentation on a stat holiday and the system went down.

malenurse1 · Jan 9, 2008

The only Nurses on my unit that use PDA's are the 2 guys. One of the women has one, but she hasn't figured out how to use it for anything but solitaire yet. I have offered to help her with that. Usually when a patient can't figure out how to use the DVD player in their room (yes we have them) my co-workers ask me to come fix it. I say I don't know how cause I haven't read the manual (YES I actually read the manuals). Overall I think the women I work with aren't as into the technology as us guys are because they can't be intuitive with it. They do try to fix things though and they are pretty creative about their efforts too! When new technology is introduced to our unit, I do not see them shy away from it, they just don't seek it out. Fortunately most of the women on my shift are younger, so they are more tech friendly than the older ones.

pawashrn · Jan 19, 2008

I solve equipment problems with a phone call to Bio-Medical no matter how simple the task. It is not my equipment. They don't clean the poop, I don't touch the wrench. It works well for me.