Anonymous Person

I totally forgot about this thread I made to be honest. I've since gone back to school for engineering because this is just too much of an issue. Everywhere I went to work, it was an issue to the point it made it hard to do my job. I tried shaving my beard and cutting my hair to look less intimidating, but it never helped. My coworkers and even the one supervisor told me to just take care of the patient because they have dementia and can't refuse care, or that the patient was only no male care by family request and family wasn't there at night (I worked 3rd shift). The 3rd shift supervisor even threatened to report me for "neglect" because I refused to take care of patients who refused my care. Similarly, one other male aide was often able to take care of these patients (he's mid 30s, a foot shorter than me, and a lot heavier than me with a higher voice), so that also made me think I was doing things wrong and made everybody else think I shouldn't be in nursing. I just don't have it in me to continue working in a field where my coworkers and employers treat me like this. It's just very disheartening to have worked so hard for my RN, all for it to be a waste.

Definitely, I'm thinking it's something about me. However, all the patients either have dementia or they don't want a male at all. All the patients who aren't in an altered mental status like me and several are very excited to see I'll be taking care of then on days I work. The only other male at work is able to take care of a lot of these patients, he said it might be my age, height or physical appearance they don't like. I feel like it's something about me, but I genuinely have no clue what it is. Several coworkers have told me not to worry, but I feel like there's something else I can do.

Of course I respect the decision, the thing is that it seems like it's just me that the patients usuallt don't want and my coworkers and management give me a hard time about it. For the record, all these patients have dementia or something similar. All the patients with it like me (except for the ones who are explicit no male care). It just makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong and it's making it hard to do my job because of my coworkers.

Using a throwaway for obvious reasons. I work in a nursing home and I have a lot of patients request not to have me as a caregiver, but some of them are OK with other men. This makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong because if they're OK with other men, but not me, then clearly it must be me. I'm not sure what it is about me in specific. I'm not sure if it's me being tall (I'm about 6'2", but I do squat down to their level to look up at them), I'm not sure if it's my beard (it's only a half inch, but I know back in the 50s when these patients grew up facial hair was frowned upon), I'm not sure if it's the fact I'm super young (I'm only 19). I understand patients not wanting a male caregiver, especially because a lot of these women grew up in abusive relationships when domestic abuse wasn't illegal. The thing is that I have a hard time getting other nurses to take care of these patients because the other nurses don't want to have to swap a patient out with me or they get annoyed having to always switch someone out with me. It's really discouraging to have such a hard time after I worked my butt off to get my RN and I'm trying to keep my hopes up, but it's so draining. Do any other men have this problem?