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. ?

4 minutes ago, Caprica6 said:

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.

Thanks. I won't be calling the hospitals to not create problems. I'll probably talk to the BON to help out future male students.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

This sounds all kinds of illegal... I mean OB patients would have every right to decline a student for any reason, but for the HOSPITAL to deny a placement based on sex/gender?? I think the EEOC might have an opinion on this too.

Imagine the outcry if a hospital denied a female student a urology placement, and the “solution” was to drive for several hours, paying extra for all that gas, and losing the study/leisure time that the men were afforded because THEY had local placements.

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Specializes in Mental Health.

Just curious - what state are you in? I hope you realize this isn't how clinical placements normally work.

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When I had clinical over an hour from home, the group of us stayed overnight. The first day we did was a 3-11 shift, the next day was a 7-3. That way we got our hours in and were able to get home and be ready for the next day. Maybe that could work for you?

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Specializes in NICU.
2 hours ago, nurse2bguy555 said:

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.

This is not true. Males make up 10-15% of nursing students. I had 8 other males in my cohort in nursing school. There was around another 10 in the traditional BSN class. Each clinical group consisted of 10 students. There were several males in my OB clinical group. Patients needed to consent to having a male nursing student, but we were not prohibited from being on the unit.

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It is so ridiculous for this to happen in 2020. Have you gone above the clinical instructor, to the program director, for guidance? Are you the ONLY student being asked to do clinicals in a hospital by yourself with no other students and no instructor around?

Lots of males are in the OB environment - ob/gyn, anesthesiologists, medical students etc. It shouldn't be any different for nurses/nursing students.

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On 1/8/2020 at 12:17 PM, Here.I.Stand said:

This sounds all kinds of illegal... I mean OB patients would have every right to decline a student for any reason, but for the HOSPITAL to deny a placement based on sex/gender?? I think the EEOC might have an opinion on this too.

Imagine the outcry if a hospital denied a female student a urology placement, and the “solution” was to drive for several hours, paying extra for all that gas, and losing the study/leisure time that the men were afforded because THEY had local placements.

I completely agree. I didn't look into this further because my instructor said she'd try to make me go there only 1 day since it's far, but it got changed to the full month. I'm just waiting for my parents to discuss the matter later today, but it seems like ill b staying in a hotel for the clinical shifts.

On 1/8/2020 at 12:22 PM, Rionoir said:

Just curious - what state are you in? I hope you realize this isn't how clinical placements normally work.

I'm in Georgia. Yeah, things have been disorganized in my program due to staffing and job changes.

On 1/8/2020 at 12:41 PM, Pam McGinnis Bruns said:

When I had clinical over an hour from home, the group of us stayed overnight. The first day we did was a 3-11 shift, the next day was a 7-3. That way we got our hours in and were able to get home and be ready for the next day. Maybe that could work for you?

Thanks. I'm probably staying at a hotel near the clinical sight.

On 1/8/2020 at 1:14 PM, NICU Guy said:

This is not true. Males make up 10-15% of nursing students. I had 8 other males in my cohort in nursing school. There was around another 10 in the traditional BSN class. Each clinical group consisted of 10 students. There were several males in my OB clinical group. Patients needed to consent to having a male nursing student, but we were not prohibited from being on the unit.

You're absolutely right. I just assumed since males make up less of the cohorts, that they didn't really go out of their way to accommodate them, in my case.

On 1/8/2020 at 2:27 PM, Golden_RN said:

It is so ridiculous for this to happen in 2020. Have you gone above the clinical instructor, to the program director, for guidance? Are you the ONLY student being asked to do clinicals in a hospital by yourself with no other students and no instructor around?

Lots of males are in the OB environment - ob/gyn, anesthesiologists, medical students etc. It shouldn't be any different for nurses/nursing students.

I was thinking of talking to the dean, but it's such short notice that I was hit with this clinical assignment. My instructor said shed try to make it only 1 day, but then told me I'm going the full month because that's the best she could do. I start next week, so I don't want to try to force the dean to set up a new rotation on such short notice. I'll probably stay in a hotel on the days I'm there.

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I answered everyone's replies, but I might have multi quoted them wrong. Sorry.

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In my ADN clinicals, there were several male students. In my OB clinical there were 2 of them. While the hospital could potentially bar male students from clinical, the only information given by the school to the clinical site was "We have 8 students in that clinical group". Not their genders. As a general rule though, students never went into a room without either another student or our clinical instructor. I agree with another commenter, this is the hospital doing this and not necessarily the school. It is true that each individual patient could refuse students or refuse male students, but not every patient was like that.

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Specializes in anesthesiology.

For some reason I don't think this would be an issue for medical students. This sounds like discrimination.

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Yeah, I understand you two above me. I'm working on a plan of commuting or staying near the clinical site on my clinical days. It did sound like discrimination, but I'm just hoping I can get through it alright and move on to my next clinical rotation, which will be closer to me .

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I’m in Georgia and there were men in my program doing their OB rotations with us in the same facilities. What part of GA are you in? (And rainy season?). Anyway, double check with your instructor on this because they can’t legally deny you because you’re a male. After all, what would male med students or male OBs do? Some of my classmates were in the hospital on the L&D floor, some were in the hospital on the postpartum floor, some were in OB prenatal clinics. There’s options out there.

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