I'm a Nursing Assistant at my hospital's ICU, and I only need 4 more months to finish up my RN. But, when they ask me if I'm a student and what's my major. Their response is "oh, neat, another male nurse."
I just let it go by...but in a while, why do people have to put "male" in front of it. People can just say nurse.
I don't say "Oh, you went to med school to become a female doctor." I find it kind of rude.
I know nursing is a field that the majority are women, but little things like that really bothers.
Female lawyers, Female physicians, Female Cops...I mean, I don't see guys say that.
I'm a Nursing Assistant at my hospital's ICU, and I only need 4 more months to finish up my RN. But, when they ask me if I'm a student and what's my major. Their response is "oh, neat, another male nurse."
I just let it go by...but in a while, why do people have to put "male" in front of it. People can just say nurse.
I don't say "Oh, you went to med school to become a female doctor." I find it kind of rude.
I know nursing is a field that the majority are women, but little things like that really bothers.
Female lawyers, Female physicians, Female Cops...I mean, I don't see guys say that.
At the beginning, I was not used to "male nurse." However, after 4 years as an LPN and 4 years as an RN; I am used to it...it is part of my RN life! I seldom hear that in the ICU...I only heard about it when I was a Med/Surg RN!
This never really comes up with me. Usually I just hear about how great it is that more men are getting into nursing. I almost never have someone say "Oh, you're a male nurse?"
I have yet to encounter this problem. Perhaps it is because i am in northern California, where working outside of prescribed gender roles is pretty common.
'Hi I had a FEMALE REPORTER interview me about 20 years ago asked me
about MALE NURSING....I could tell she was fishing for some comment I might make that she could smear over her yellow rag...so I shot her right in her literrary ...Journalistic head....I said " You know grammatically when you speak of a Nurse...if there is only one male in the nursing profession
you would have to refer All nurses as HE rather than she to be grammatically correct. The rule states that if there is a question regarding
gender when speaking of a group of people it would be Masculine By
Prefferance......Right ............She just sat there and sneared at me:) '
...you didn't happen to photograph/video this by any chance...? Cool.
I read the best reply ever to that in the male student forum (I would give credit to whoever said it but I don't remember). When asked why do you want to be a male nurse the response was "I wanted to be a female nurse but the waiting list was too long". I put that one in reserve for use later.
ROTFL!
BTW, women in the ministry often get a similar response when they tell people what they do. "You're a FEMALE pastor!?!"
After hearing that question 150,000 times, I think most of my female friend in the pastoral ministry are tempted to stuff the entire boxed set of "The Vicar of Dibley" up someone's snout.
I live in MN and I have actually NEVER been asked anything like this. I was kind of pleasantly surprised by this. Most people just gush, "Oh that is a GREAT career choice!" and such.
I think my dad may harbor reservations about his son being a "male nurse", but he has not verbalized them yet.
The LTC/Rehab/Transitional care facility I work at has a rather high percentage of male nurses - about 1/3. There are 3 male CNAs (including me) at my facility who are currently in RN programs. None of the female aides at work are in nursing programs.
I was sort of preparing myself for those types of comments and they never came. My stepgrandmother told me I should be a doctor and could not understand why I was studying to be a nurse, but that's about it.
The thing I get all the time that is sort of bothersome is the people who only focus on how much money a nurse can make. After a year working at a busy, understaffed nursing home I can honestly tell them, "If you are in it primarily for the money, find something else to do."
Never got it here in Michigan. EVeryone has had good things to say. The only thing is one of my nursing instructioners was really hard on me on my Med Surg rotation. Grant it, I wasn't all that yet. It was still my first year. But I do think that my gender had something to do with her not liking me very much. Like I said, I wasn't great yet. But there has been worse, and I wasn't that bad. So sexism like that can go both ways. I don't have proof. But I was the only male, and my classmates who were female suspected sexism before I did.
I just heart it when people ask me that. 
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Used to say, "yep, studying to be a nurse." In a way it seemed to shut people up. I still say it too!
Tom