PLEASE HELP! TOPIC-Men in Nursing

SteveNNP, MSN, NP · Nov 10, 2005

About the L&D related post,

I work NICU, and often find myself in the labor & delivery room at the business end of the mom, waiting for my responsibility, the baby to come on out......usually it's the female nurses who can't believe that a man would be comfortable in their estrogen rich environment. COnvince them otherwise, and you'll be fine.

Human nurse · Dec 8, 2005

School:

I was dreading my OB rotation, I thought for sure that I would be standing outside the door and nobody would want me. But that did not happen, I did not have a single patient refuse me, and the nurses and NP's were great. We did have 1 patient ask that a male student not be allowed but it was a religion thing and the family seemed polite.

As for actual work

I have been refused by a patient, once again it was an older patient from a different culture. But one time we had a patient from Afganistan and he actually preferred male care givers. Very nice people.

In my opinion nursing is about professionalism, compassion, and helping others, gender is a secondary issue and not a major one in my opinion.

BTW... if a patient does ask for a female nurse, don't panic there are plenty of patients for all of us.

PsychNurseWannaBe, BSN, RN · Dec 9, 2005

well yes and no..

[color=#003399]i think it is somewhat reversed in our program. not in favoritism but more like we are like a breath of fresh air. i think we have 8 men out of 77 in our group. i think they try to retain men more because there are so little men in nursing in our area.

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[color=#003399]the down side... man you miss one class and the professor notices if you are not there but i know this one lady who missed 9 same classes in a row and nothing... she never got an email or anything. geez... :)

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[color=#003399]with ob...just expect it and don't take it personally. several of our men are asked by the patients not to be in the room. you have to respect it and move on. it is the patient's right and they are obviously not comfortable with have a man there. they may not understand that it is possible for us to look at a lady parts and just see a lady parts...nothing sexual is going on in our heads. you see one... you've seen them all.

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[color=#003399]however, the facility should "buffer" you prior to this by asking the client upon admittance if they have an objection to a nurse who is a man taking care of them and helping with delivery.