I would like to ask men in nursing school and those already in the nursing field for their opinions here.
1. What made you want to go into the nursing profession?
2. Did you have any reservations about it specifically since you are male? (I am trying to determine if stereotypes actually are a barrier to men entering the field)
3. Do you feel as though your nursing education is tailored to meet the needs of male and females alike? (One study I read states that men do not feel as though they were taught how to properly clean a female or even how to properly touch a female. They assumed it was because if you are a female nursing student you would already know how to do this and it didnt need to be explained)
4. Do you feel like you are or have ever been discriminated against because you are a male in the nursing field?
4. Do you find that coworkers either do or do not ask you to do things because you are male? ie. heavy lifting, female exams
5. Do you feel as though you need to be cautious when caring for a female pt? (I had never given it any thought but three of the men I interviewed said that they are always aware of what they are doing or saying to female because of the fear of the pt. thinking they are being inappropriate)
5. is there anything you would like to add specifically about being a man and a nurse?
1. What made you want to go into the nursing profession?
I wanted to help people. My previous career wasn't able to fulfill that. I actually had an offer to do seminary or nursing school at the same time and decided on nursing in the end.
2. Did you have any reservations about it specifically since you are male? (I am trying to determine if stereotypes actually are a barrier to men entering the field)
Yes. Meet the Parents, Scrubs, the media, etc. put a bad stigma on male nurses and until I actually met some, I thought it would be a barrier that I wouldn't be able to overcome.
3. Do you feel as though your nursing education is tailored to meet the needs of male and females alike? (One study I read states that men do not feel as though they were taught how to properly clean a female or even how to properly touch a female. They assumed it was because if you are a female nursing student you would already know how to do this and it didnt need to be explained)
I felt like it was overall geared towards everyone. OB is the only class thus far that I have struggled in. As for cleaning females, it isn't rocket science and being a nursing assistant I do it all the time it isn't a big deal. Our first labs were about nursing assistant skills like that anyhow.
4. Do you feel like you are or have ever been discriminated against because you are a male in the nursing field?
Yes.
4. Do you find that coworkers either do or do not ask you to do things because you are male? ie. heavy lifting, female exams
Yes.
5. Do you feel as though you need to be cautious when caring for a female pt? (I had never given it any thought but three of the men I interviewed said that they are always aware of what they are doing or saying to female because of the fear of the pt. thinking they are being inappropriate)
I used to, but don't anymore. Gender doesn't matter in the end, it's how comfortable the patient is with the person caring for them. This is why patients can choose not to have a male or a female provide care for them.
5. is there anything you would like to add specifically about being a man and a nurse?
Opportunities are endless if you don't get caught up in the mindset of being a male as a detriment to being in the nursing profession.
Those of you trying to start a fight...or getting all up in your feelings about these questions...
I am doing a research paper about the stereotypes and discrimination surrounding MEN in nursing. My research on the topic is what lead me to ask the questions I did. It was to see if MEN in nursing felt that these things applied to them.
It would be the same as me asking the females if they felt as though doctors and other staff treated them as though they were stupid, if they ever felt as though they were sexualized, etc.
Thank you for your response. One of the few male nurses I know works in the NICU. I did not give any thought to men in nursing until I was assigned this paper and I started doing research. That is what made me want to get "real" opinions from "real" men in nursing. While I realize that the studies are done on real people, I just never really thought it was that much of an issue. I needed to find out if that is because I am female and just hadn't noticed or if men really did feel the brunt of these stereotypes and such.
My nursing class was also taught how to properly clean females as well as males. I threw that question in there after reading a few surveys that stated their nursing school did not properly teach them how to clean females and they had to ask their female classmates to help them.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I am currently looking in to how the media portrays men in nursing and I am finding that it is typically in a negative light.
When I get to the part of my paper where I have to come up with solutions, I think changing how the media portrays men in nursing would be beneficial.
As a matter of fact, how tv portrays nursing in general would help...all those medical shows always show the doctor ALWAYS right at the bedside...lol lol
@ HeathermaizeyI don't think anyone is saying that women may not get proper training either, but this was a thread directed toward what a male perspective is.
Aside from that, nowhere was it said that I or many men don't feel comfortable taking care of women, it's the other way around. Many women are weary of a male taking care of them. This may be something I feel is more applicable to someone like me who is younger. My patient assignments have been completely chosen because the charge nurse or my instructor didn't feel comfortable with me giving care to a female who is around my age. This I suspect is why when I had my OB clinicals, many nurses felt weary on letting me give patient care because the women were close to my age. Like I said earlier though, I never had a patient in my OB clinical have an issue with me being their nurse, but the nurses, preceptors, or instructor DID. That's just fact. Male nurses are denied patient care to women at a much higher rate than women are to men. (Men just don't request a male nurse often, but women request a female one at a higher rate.) If this is the constant experience men get then I could see why some would be hesitant to provide care to a woman.
Honestly before nursing school, as an EMT I had no issues with it (and I still don't really, especially older females), but it's also a much different scenario in the back of an ambulance in an emergency setting. I never even thought about it until recently when the nurses/instructors I worked with made a point to not allow me to give patient care to females in my age bracket, I never felt uncomfortable, but now I feel like it's inappropriate for me to have a young female client. It's a little troubling to feel that way when you never did before. Like I said, I don't have the issue, and many times the patient doesn't have an issue, its often other female nurses. On the other hand I never have seen a nurse/preceptor/instructor deny a young woman nurse/student patient care on a young man, so in my experience the double standard exists. If you're not willing to see that or agree then I guess you're either in denial or your probably one of the ones who doesn't feel that way, which is nice. But telling someone to just get over it is a little rude without taking the time to understand where they are coming from.
We have a few guys in our program and never once has there been an issue, including OB. They got down and dirty just like we did. I have also had the pleasure of working with a male nurse who has been one for a very long time this semester. Never saw one issue from our female patients. And yes we did peri care, the whole nine yards as I am in ICU. He's one of the best nurses I have met so far and have worked with him extensively. One of the girls in my cohort works on this unit and she works with him all of the time, no issues.
The fact of the matter is, if you go in not confident, then you are at a disadvantage. The patient can sense when somebody is uncomfortable and will voice their concern.
I see guys come in here all of the time wanting to know about the disadvantages for men in nursing and I don't see any. In my area, male nurses are very common. On a 22 bed icu unit, I see about 3 or 4 every time I am there. There are anywhere from a total of 11-15 nurses on shift. They each have 1-2 patients depending on their acuity.
It wasn't rude of me. If you can't be confident enough in yourself to perform pericare on a woman, then you may not have the confidence to get through the program and become a nurse. You gotta fake it until you make it. I'm most certainly not confident when I have to do something new on a patient. But, if I let the patient know that whether I am a man or woman, then my patient loses confidence in not just me, but the hospital as well which is not good for their business. Or me having a future job.
We have a few guys in our program and never once has there been an issue, including OB. They got down and dirty just like we did. I have also had the pleasure of working with a male nurse who has been one for a very long time this semester. Never saw one issue from our female patients. And yes we did peri care, the whole nine yards as I am in ICU. He's one of the best nurses I have met so far and have worked with him extensively. One of the girls in my cohort works on this unit and she works with him all of the time, no issues.
The fact of the matter is, if you go in not confident, then you are at a disadvantage. The patient can sense when somebody is uncomfortable and will voice their concern.
I see guys come in here all of the time wanting to know about the disadvantages for men in nursing and I don't see any. In my area, male nurses are very common. On a 22 bed icu unit, I see about 3 or 4 every time I am there. There are anywhere from a total of 11-15 nurses on shift. They each have 1-2 patients depending on their acuity.
It wasn't rude of me. If you can't be confident enough in yourself to perform pericare on a woman, then you may not have the confidence to get through the program and become a nurse. You gotta fake it until you make it. I'm most certainly not confident when I have to do something new on a patient. But, if I let the patient know that whether I am a man or woman, then my patient loses confidence in not just me, but the hospital as well which is not good for their business. Or me having a future job.
I agree with the confidence and the 'fake it till you make it'. Sometimes through text its hard to understand someone's tone, so sorry for calling you rude if that wasn't at all your intention.
I would have loved the opportunity to be as involved as your classmates were in your OB clinical. I actually ended up enjoying OB but because of my experiences, I felt I was a pervert or something for being genuinely interested or wanting to be in the room during labor. Luckily there was a nurse on the L&D team that saw my frustrations one day and took me aside and told me how many of the nurses in this particular institution we were in were very ‘uppity' and didn't feel like men should be in the OB department. This was most definitely the vibe of the hospital, so I am not saying my experience is common. She had me put on L&D blue scrubs, told me to tuck my nametag into my pocket and told me to just follow her that day. Because of that, I was able to see 2 lady partsl deliveries and not one person questioned me. Dads were especially happy to see a ‘male nurse' in the room and all of them talked with me and asked questions.
My experience was odd because I think a lot of men have patients who deny them, but I was actually being denied by the nurses. I especially remember my first day, I had already gone into my four patients rooms and introduced myself as a student and said I would be assisting today. All of the patients had no issues with me and so I met with my assigned nurse. We went into the first room to do a fundal assessment and she introduced me, then asked the patient sheepishly if it was ok if she had a male student assisting. The patient looked confused as I already asked and said yes. The nurse replied with are you sure, I know it can be awkward?†This occurred with all four of my patients that day and of course they all then would have second thoughts. On top of that, my nurse would do all of her assessments as quickly as possible, would cover the patients at an angle so I could not see what was going on, and on any occasions the women's breasts would be exposed, stopped everything and asked me to leave the room! I felt like some perv that shouldn't have even been there in the first place. I didn't know really at the time, but I now realize these nurses were wrong and had no business taking students if they weren't willing to teach. The other 2 male students in my cohort had the exact same complaints each post-conference. We were rightfully angry because we weren't learning things that we would be tested on, but the girls were.
This is still the only time, so far, in nursing I have felt shunned just for being male and for lack of a better word, it sucked because my experience was nowhere near as good as the women or as good as the men in the other cohort who were at a different hospital.
Before this experience I never felt odd or unconfident in taking care of a female. I still don't the majority of the time unless it is a patient who is very close in age to me and its honesty because of that feeling of ‘you're a perv' that was instilled in the men of that clinical site. But it's a personal issue and I will get over it. It's not like I wouldn't take care of a patient because they were a young woman, it was just something I never had even given a thought prior to OB.
I wrote Passing California NCLEX-RN in 60 Questions Mini-Series, so you can expect brutal honesty.
1. What made you want to go into the nursing profession?
A 2-year degree = $65K starting salary? Sign me right up!
Side benefits: respectable social status and something about helping people. I do say exactly these three things, but in a more diplomatic way during interviews.
2. Did you have any reservations about it specifically since you are male?
None during school. But right after graduation, it did finally hit me, Huhmm...I'm a 'male' nurse.â€
But once I passed the NCLEX and before my first job interview, I went from saying 'male' nurse to simply, I'm a nurse†â†- other males here probably experienced this too.
3. Do you feel as though your nursing education is tailored to meet the needs of male and females alike?
This is a non-issue for me; check out my personal stats in my Passing California NCLEX-RN in 60 Questions Mini-Series.
4. Do you feel like you are or have ever been discriminated against because you are a male in the nursing field?
In L&D rotation, I set an appropriate level of expectation—ironically enough I was one of the males to actually be in during vag delivery, did the messaging fundus and putting in foley. The veggie definitely swells to 3x-4x its original size.
With that gay and why not a doctor stereotypes, I find therapeutic communication techniques useful (this is a big hint into my success in negotiating a higher pay as a new grad).
5. Do you feel as though you need to be cautious when caring for a female pt?
My personal view is any female younger than about 27 is a lawsuit waiting to happen, so I'd be extra clear if they would prefer a female nurse instead.
5. is there anything you would like to add specifically about being a man and a nurse?
During my interviews I did not find my panel interviewers (all females) all that intimidating...translation: not at all intimidating (another hint into my success in negotiating a higher pay as a new grad).
I would like to ask men in nursing school and those already in the nursing field for their opinions here.
1. What made you want to go into the nursing profession? A good-paying, stable job
2. Did you have any reservations about it specifically since you are male? (I am trying to determine if stereotypes actually are a barrier to men entering the field) Nope. I'm not sure that there are any stereotypes.
3. Do you feel as though your nursing education is tailored to meet the needs of male and females alike? (One study I read states that men do not feel as though they were taught how to properly clean a female or even how to properly touch a female. They assumed it was because if you are a female nursing student you would already know how to do this and it didnt need to be explained) I think nursing education leaves a lot to be desired but there was no 'tailoring' nor was any necessary.
4. Do you feel like you are or have ever been discriminated against because you are a male in the nursing field? Absolutely not. If anything, it's something of an advantage.
4. Do you find that coworkers either do or do not ask you to do things because you are male? ie. heavy lifting, female exams I don't get asked to chaperone pelvic exams, thankfully. Except one time... a lady doc couldn't find anybody so I did.
5. Do you feel as though you need to be cautious when caring for a female pt? (I had never given it any thought but three of the men I interviewed said that they are always aware of what they are doing or saying to female because of the fear of the pt. thinking they are being inappropriate) I am mindful of female perceptions in all aspects of my life. I don't need to be cautious, I just need to be mindful and respectful.
5. is there anything you would like to add specifically about being a man and a nurse? It's a good-paying, stable job
2. Yes, I'm not a nurturer and have difficulty tolerating people who are not autonomous.
3. No, but I feel like nursing education is deficienct in most domains.
4. No, I think it's helped both advancement and income.
4? Yes, as a staff RN - lifting and member catheters.
5. I tried to never be alone with them.
5? Neo male norms are more suitable to modern nurse work. Classical manhood isn't unsuited but rather less suited to nurse work in general primarily due to the lack of autonomy, professional respect, and social expectation e.g. "patient," stop complaining, get off welfare, and get a job. Empathy and caring for our fellow man are not less than manly. Rather, the functional roles of modern nurses don't mirror traditional male gender roles. Even the perceptions of most female students regarding the "stress" of nurse academics is -anecdotally- perceived differently tamong male students. The academics were not challenging for me, but the sobbing students and catty instructors were difficult to deal with particularly changing from a position of leadership in a make dominated profession to alumnus student nurse. I am a Conservative traditionalist.
Because I haven't even started nursing classes, I can only really answer the first two questions, but I still wanted to do that much, so here goes:
1. I've always had an interest in the medical field. I started out college as pre-med, vut quickly gave up on that because (as I've said since then) "science is hard". I spent a year and a half as a photography major, but I was drawn to nursing in my second semester in photography. I had a pretty severe mental health crisis and was admitted to a psych unit, where I made an instant connection with my nurse, Jim. Still, nearly a year and a half later, I don't know what it was about my stay in the hospital that reeled me into nursing (especially since I know I don't want to do psych) but it was that experience that lit the spark, so to speak. Now, I'm at a community college doing pre-reqs dor the nursing program here and I couldn't be more excited to get going.
2. Sort of, yes. But not necessarily because I'm a man, but because I'm a transgender (female to male) man, and I have a hard enough time being perceived as male as it is. That's my only real problem with it though.
CVICU-Nurse1.5
129 Posts
1. What made you want to go into the nursing profession?
I wanted to help people. My previous career wasn't able to fulfill that. I actually had an offer to do seminary or nursing school at the same time and decided on nursing in the end.
2. Did you have any reservations about it specifically since you are male? (I am trying to determine if stereotypes actually are a barrier to men entering the field)
Yes. Meet the Parents, Scrubs, the media, etc. put a bad stigma on male nurses and until I actually met some, I thought it would be a barrier that I wouldn't be able to overcome.
3. Do you feel as though your nursing education is tailored to meet the needs of male and females alike? (One study I read states that men do not feel as though they were taught how to properly clean a female or even how to properly touch a female. They assumed it was because if you are a female nursing student you would already know how to do this and it didnt need to be explained)
I felt like it was overall geared towards everyone. OB is the only class thus far that I have struggled in. As for cleaning females, it isn't rocket science and being a nursing assistant I do it all the time it isn't a big deal. Our first labs were about nursing assistant skills like that anyhow.
4. Do you feel like you are or have ever been discriminated against because you are a male in the nursing field?
Yes.
4. Do you find that coworkers either do or do not ask you to do things because you are male? ie. heavy lifting, female exams
Yes.
5. Do you feel as though you need to be cautious when caring for a female pt? (I had never given it any thought but three of the men I interviewed said that they are always aware of what they are doing or saying to female because of the fear of the pt. thinking they are being inappropriate)
I used to, but don't anymore. Gender doesn't matter in the end, it's how comfortable the patient is with the person caring for them. This is why patients can choose not to have a male or a female provide care for them.
5. is there anything you would like to add specifically about being a man and a nurse?
Opportunities are endless if you don't get caught up in the mindset of being a male as a detriment to being in the nursing profession.