OB Unit for Male Student

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Hi. I'm a male nursing student about to start OB Clinicals. Since I'm a male, most hospitals would not let me do clinicals. My instructor could only find one hospital to accept me, but the problem is that the hospital is an hour and a half from my house. I'd have to leave super early in the morning and go back home late at night. The clinical rotation is over a month and I would be using almost half a tank of gas a day. My instructor said this is the only place she could find. Does anyone have ideas of how I could get a site closer, like maybe call a nearby hospital and ask if I can do clinicals there, like as long as a woman is in the room with me, or if they just approve in general? Thanks. ?

2 minutes ago, tonyl1234 said:

This isn't your school. This is the hospital. This is out of your school's hands. I'd call the board of nursing and ask their advice about being denied your OB clinical because of being a male. Your story makes it sound like your school did what they could to find you a spot. They did their job. You need to address the local hospitals not letting a male do clinical. Just make sure to confirm that you couldn't get into those hospitals because of being a male, and not just that there wasn't room and you were just the unlucky one who has to go far.

Thanks so much. I'll be calling the other hospitals and asking about the OB clinicals and for the specific reason I can't attend. Hopefully it all works out.

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OK, follow these steps:

1. Talk to your clinical instructor and confirm if the issue was that you were being denied a clinical spot was for being a male, or if it was just a number of students issue.

2. If it's because of the number of students, suck it up and take the drive, it's only 1 month, if you need to, throw a little extra on your loans to cover gas. If it's because you were a male, then go to 3.

3. Call the board of nursing and get their advice.

Don't do anything else but that.

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10 hours ago, tonyl1234 said:

OK, follow these steps:

1. Talk to your clinical instructor and confirm if the issue was that you were being denied a clinical spot was for being a male, or if it was just a number of students issue.

2. If it's because of the number of students, suck it up and take the drive, it's only 1 month, if you need to, throw a little extra on your loans to cover gas. If it's because you were a male, then go to 3.

3. Call the board of nursing and get their advice.

Don't do anything else but that.

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll just take the drive for now. It might be too late to make other arrangements since I start back next week. Thanks for your help.

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Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.

Hang in there. Mr. Ruby Jane found the same kind of "treatment" back in the 90s when he was becoming an ADN. At least the hospital at which he did his clinicals let him on the floor. He could not check a cervix for dilation (although he probably could have). He was not encouraged to help with breastfeeding and lactation (although he probably could have).

It was only a month. It did not sour him at all but it soured me....like...he became an emergency nurse and actually DELIVERED a BABY in that setting so, there you go.

Calling the BON at this point will perhaps help those coming after you but may not benefit you directly. This is not your chosen career path, correct? This is just required training. We do a lot of stuff in nursing school that is completely irrelevant to real life, including jumping through various hoops. Best of luck!

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31 minutes ago, ruby_jane said:

Hang in there. Mr. Ruby Jane found the same kind of "treatment" back in the 90s when he was becoming an ADN. At least the hospital at which he did his clinicals let him on the floor. He could not check a cervix for dilation (although he probably could have). He was not encouraged to help with breastfeeding and lactation (although he probably could have).

It was only a month. It did not sour him at all but it soured me....like...he became an emergency nurse and actually DELIVERED a BABY in that setting so, there you go.

Calling the BON at this point will perhaps help those coming after you but may not benefit you directly. This is not your chosen career path, correct? This is just required training. We do a lot of stuff in nursing school that is completely irrelevant to real life, including jumping through various hoops. Best of luck!

Thanks so much for the support. It's not my chosen path, just a requirement. I'm mostly nervous about the commute since it will be really dark and it's the rainy season where I'm at. Plus I might be tired after a 12 hour clinical shift. These aren't the best driving conditions, but I'll definatley try to be extra safe while driving.

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2 minutes ago, nurse2bguy555 said:

I'm mostly nervous about the commute since it will be really dark and it's the rainy season where I'm at. Plus I might be tired after a 12 hour clinical shift. These aren't the best driving conditions, but I'll definatley try to be extra safe while driving.

Can they cluster your clinicals and maybe you could stay at a hotel (the school should pay for it honestly) rather than driving back and forth? That seems to be a reasonable compromise since they are pretty much screwing you. I can't imagine what's happening is even legal.

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4 minutes ago, Wuzzie said:

Can they cluster your clinicals and maybe you could stay at a hotel (the school should pay for it honestly) rather than driving back and forth? That seems to be a reasonable compromise since they are pretty much screwing you. I can't imagine what's happening is even legal.

Oh my, that just might work. I Rechecked my schedule and it has clinicals 2 days in a row, then 2 days of class, and repeats. I might be able to stay in a hotel for those 2 days and have my dad pick me up and stay 2 days at home for class. This Really helps me. Thank you. I hope it works.

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Are instructors out there really individually responsible for trying to secure clinical placements for each student? How would this possibly fall to an individual clinical instructor?

How does the school not have this ironed out? This cannot be the first time this has happened.

Doesn't it seem like someone isn't telling the truth somewhere (or doesn't have all the information)? [I'm thinking of the instructor, not the OP].

I mean, assuming this has happened before the school would know that local hospitals have this issue (right or wrong) and that the far away place is the go-to place. How does that end up with an individual instructor supposedly calling around and pleading the case?

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3 minutes ago, JKL33 said:

Are instructors out there really individually responsible for trying to secure clinical placements for each student? How would this possibly fall to an individual clinical instructor?

How does the school not have this ironed out? This cannot be the first time this has happened.

Doesn't it seem like someone isn't telling the truth somewhere (or doesn't have all the information)? [I'm thinking of the instructor, not the OP].

I mean, assuming this has happened before the school would know that local hospitals have this issue (right or wrong) and that the far away place is the go-to place. How does that end up with an individual instructor supposedly calling around and pleading the case?

It seems from what I've gathered that the specific instructor has tried this in the past, and that the far away hospital is just there "go to" hospital that they have chosen for men. Male students are kind of rare in the nursing programs, so I guess they don't really have to deal with this issue a lot, so they don't really try to get it resolved and maybe hope it just works out.

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9 minutes ago, nurse2bguy555 said:

It seems from what I've gathered that the specific instructor has tried this in the past, and that the far away hospital is just there "go to" hospital that they have chosen for men. Male students are kind of rare in the nursing programs, so I guess they don't really have to deal with this issue a lot, so they don't really try to get it resolved and maybe hope it just works out.

I suspect that is a problem for the school one way or another. If the "male OB student" thing is really on the hospitals (and is not related to anything that school themselves is or isn't doing--which I don't think is completely clear at this point), then the school still has a problem because they are not able to provide members of the cohort with similar services, solely based on sex of the student. And, even if there's nothing illegal there, then it would seem reasonable that they should have to disclose that information up-front before you decide whether or not to engage their services/pay them tuition.

?

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2 minutes ago, JKL33 said:

I suspect that is a problem for the school one way or another. If the "male OB student" thing is really on the hospitals (and is not related to anything that school themselves is or isn't doing--which I don't think is completely clear at this point), then the school still has a problem because they are not able to provide members of the cohort with similar services, solely based on sex of the student. And, even if there's nothing illegal there, then it would seem reasonable that they should have to disclose that information up-front before you decide whether or not to engage their services/pay them tuition.

?

I completely agree. Things have been disorganized since the start of the program due to staffing issues, miscommunication, etc., so I'm not surprised this was left out. I'm going to talk to my mom about hotel arrangements to see if that is an option. I don't want to cause my instructor problems since she's been really busy, especially with arranging sites and procedures for the other students. They recently hired another instructor to help out because they knew they were so short staffed. Since this one instructor is in charge of all the clinical arrangements herself, I don't want to keep bombarding her with problems I have, I guess. If I can make this hotel thing work, I'll probably just do it for the 1 month period. I'll get back to you guys if it works out.

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13 hours ago, nurse2bguy555 said:

Thanks so much. I'll be calling the other hospitals and asking about the OB clinicals and for the specific reason I can't attend. Hopefully it all works out.

I strongly encourage you to *not* do this. You will most likely make some waves for yourself in your school that you don't want to have to surf. It's difficult to find clinical placements for students and a student calling to find out why they can't attend a clinical at the hospital or trying to find an alternate site will not be looked upon fondly.

Many students have to travel far for their clinicals, it's the nature of the beast sometimes. However, I don't condone what the hospitals are doing to you by denying you an educational experience due to your gender. That's definitely something to report to the BON.

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