OB position

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I have thought long and hard about applying in the OB department. I feel this might be the place for me, but will it be hard for a male to be in the OB department? Is there a place for male nurses in this department?

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My wife has worked on a Neo Natal floor for almost 30 years. During most of that time, there has been at least one male nurse on staff. He does all the duties required of him. However, sometimes a patient may request a female nurse when it comes to certain tasks.

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Specializes in labor & delivery.

Our sister hospital has a male l&d nurse. Most people really like him. Good luck and best wishes!

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Specializes in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation.

I've heard it's very, VERY rare. My OB instructor said she has never known any male OB nurse in the area, but she has worked with a male OB-OR nurse; however, he didn't last long due to personal reasons, whatever they were. I really enjoyed my OB rotation and actually asked my instructor about it (our maternity site is also where she worked at) being a male OB nurse. She was all for it, but she did say that there would be a lot of obstacles to overcome and you will always have someone watching you. She said she heard of one male OB nurse that could never take patients by himself, he was always paired with a female nurse --> that, which is something you have to respect.

Like I said, I enjoyed OB and I would consider it, but it wouldn't be worth going through all the troubles to become one. And, if I was, I would only be per diem, I could not see myself doing that for life. And, it's not necessarily always the hospital that might get in your way, it could definitely be the female patients and/or spouse/family/friends.

You can always consider NICU or Peds or Peds ICU. There are no issues for male nurses there that I know of (though 99.999% are female nurses haha).

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

We have 6 guys that work L/D at my hospital :) And between our unit and peds we have 10 guys, . I wish we had more guys, they tend to even things out lol

My labor nurse was one of the guys and I honestly feel I had a better experience with him because he related to my hubby and was so laid back!

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