Men or Women? who is a better nurse?

Nurses General Nursing

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im student nurse... and one topic that we came across today in class is " who is a better nurse? men or women?" ... is it really true when they say women are more caring than men? For nurses that have been in the profession in years, what do u think? ...

ROFLMAO---------------

MY other half is in nursing school.

Good for you Zhakrin-------

and no you didn't make a mistake

Specializes in LDRP; Education.
Originally posted by lever5

I had a male instructor in my BSN program, He was mighty pleased when I wrote a paper on men in nursing. The history is really interesting stuff. Males were the first nurses.

That's interesting. I just read in the history of how hospitals were formed in our country, before they were actually hospitals, that the first "nurse" so to speak were former female prison inmates or women who could not work anywhere else. They were placed in these "sick houses", such as the Poor House of New York City (which is now known as Johns Hopkins) to work by our government. This was before nursing was identified as a actual trade, and before such things as sterile technique were thought of.

I believe that the easiliest nurses...(not counting a family member caring for a sick relative) were monks during the middle ages. they took in people with contagious illness, orphans, the dying and walk the battlefeild pulling injured warriors out. With a flash of a knife they quickly ended the lives of people that would have lingered.

During the crusades foot soilders took over these jobs and cared for their comrades. I believe that in later wars this job split in care provided at a specialty camp (nursing and medical intervention) and the removal of the injured (ambulance).

:devil: Zhakrin :devil:

Specializes in LDRP; Education.

Good lord Zhakrin! Middle ages??? I was trying to narrow down the history to OUR country.

:D

Ha, Suzy, that is what wildtime told me once in an argument about how bad women have made the profession!:) I still thought Florence was the first one to use the word nurse...Oh well.

I don't know why people are so stuck on gender in nursing. My nursing instructors LOOOOOVVVVED the male students. Made me want to barf. Gender means nothing. You're either a good nurse or you're not.

Specializes in LDRP; Education.

Hi Tracy!

HA! Actually, the only reason the former female prison innmates were there tending to the "sick" or infirmed was because they were forced. Again, they were not "nurses" so to speak as the profession had yet to be identified. But as the origin of "hospitals" are studied, so are the "workers" who staffed these "hospitals." These Sick Houses were not hospitals as we know them, just like the staff were not nurses as we know them.

Yes, Florence Nightengale was the first woman who took the act of caring for the sick, hygiene, and total wholistic care of the person and coined it "nurse" and started what is now the Nursing Profession.

Wildtime liked to inflame people with topics like this; thing is, if you are going to blame the women who were staffing these Sick Houses and spreading infections, we could just as easily blame the men who put them there and had them work under those conditions. Men of power during those times also didn't know that hygiene had as much to do with keeping infections down as did sequestering these individuals. So..who's to blame? As you can see, it's a moot, moot point.

;)

Couldn't agree more!:D

I don't see any problem with an instructor asking this question. I certainly don't think an instructor should be reported for asking as long as the instructor was unbiased. If anything, questions such as this serve to stimulate discussion and expose students to views that may differ from their own. This is part of higher education.

At the risk of being slammed for my answer, I'll give my answer to this. First, as a patient, I prefer ANY nurse who listens, addresses my concerns, is caring, and interacts with me in a professional manner. That being said, I find that women sometimes tend to take things more personally and also tend to be more moody than men. If I had to choose between a male and female nurse, knowing nothing else about them, I would choose the male.

I realize this is a broad generalization. I'm sure everyone could come up with as many male nurses who fit that description as female nurses who don't. It's just my personal feelings on the matter.

Help me out here, is this a "mobbing"? No one waited to find out why the instructor asked the question. It may be out of context from something larger and thought provoking-not flame provoking. Ya think?

Flo was not alone in the Crimea, there was at least one other proto-nurse out there doing as much to help the sick and wounded. Her name was Mary Seacole, but she never got the public attention that Florence did. Perhaps because she did not have the benefit of Florences' upper middle class connections, or maybe being black didn't help.

I am a male nursing student, and I am really glad to see that most nurses aren't prejudiced towards males entering the profession. I think how good a nurse you are depends on your character, and their will be good and bad nurses of both genders.

I have to say that I feel very sorry for some of the biased, opinionated, discriminatory, downright evil things that I've witnessed female supervisor/chargenurse/nurse manager types say and do to male nurses. After all the years that females were discriminated against for the dumbest reasons....some of these women seem bound and determined to forget what it felt like and do it to the men in our profession.

One example: I watched one young man...a CNA going to school for his RN, working at the same hospital I did, working just as hard as I was, but treated most shamefully. When assignments were passed out he was told he couldn't give baths to female patients, or be anywhere in the vicinity of the patient if anything invasive were being done. This guy was forced to float off of the floor 3 times as often as his female counterparts. He was accused of not being "trustworthy" to be around female patients because his mannerisms were too sexual in nature. (The poor guy was gay for crying out loud). He finally got fed up and quit. We lost a great nurse that day. This is just one example. All of the males on my floor were treated the same way...bound by the same prejudices. I'm ashamed of the women that treat guys this way. As soon as we quit thinking in a negative way....our patients will follow our lead. So I think that the question of who does the patient want to take care of them is ill-spirited and irrelevant. The patients...like us....want expert care. In all honesty...how many male patients are asked whether they want a male or female nurse? You have this female RN's supprt Gentlemen. Oh and by the way. Just because a male is a nurse...it is not written in stone that they are gay. So don't assume!

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