Series298

We accommodate patients because we want them to be comfortable. Each patients subjective believes are based on their individual knowledge and life experiences. As a result, some female patients are comfortable with male staff and some are not...and same with the male patient population (some are comfortable with female nurses and some want a male nurse). Now, if we break the genders down to gay male nurses and gay female nurses, does that change a patients view on what nurse they would be comfortable with? Would a female patient who did not want a male nurse now be okay since she found out he was gay? What about ethnicity or religious affiliation (where garments worn denote that religious affiliation)? If a patient were to refuse a nurse based on ethnicity or religious affiliation, it would not be tolerated by the staff or management. The patient would bee thought to be racist or prejudice. Why then is it okay to subjectively judge nurses based on gender? If a female patient is not comfortable with a male nurse, then why is that? I don't think its okay to refuse a male nurse just because your not comfortable with them? If a patient said they were not comfortable with a black nurse, or an asian nurse, or caucasian nurse it would not be tolerated. Now, i'm not saying that a male nurse should still go ahead and provide care for a female patient who does not want a male nurse; that would just lead to significant sexual harassment cases. I think it should be dealt with in the same matter that issues with race would be dealt with; Acknowledge and denounce the behaviour, yet comply with the patient's request.

@ RowReally I'm not sure if i completely understand your comment, but I will respond. Apologies if I misinterpret some points. When it comes to providing care to patients that involves very private/personal situations, I think there are very very few patients that are actually completely comfortable having a nurse assist them. On my unit, we have many young male patients ( 17+ yrs) who receive total care from female nurses. I don't believe these young males are any more comfortable receiving care from female staff than young females receiving care from male staff; I believe it has more to do with body image issues, and societal beliefs. I think females are generally much more concerned with body image and judgement thus would not want a male staff. Also, I feel that the social bias of men being sexual predators influences the decisions made by co-staff (at least in my experience, this is accurate...see my comment above, regarding the male CNA that was sent home due to non trust for caring for a female patient on night shift). I do not believe they are protecting me from lawsuits. I am able to protect myself by speaking with the patient and discussing the matter directly. Also, female patients requesting a female staff is much easier to accommodate than if the roles were reversed. If one of our young male patients wanted a male nurse, he would not have a choice but to have a female nurse. Just because its easier to accommodate female patients doesn't mean we should be doing so. When it comes down to it, Nurses are professionals and their gender should not come into play. We are not "male nurses" and "female nurses," we're NURSES.

@ adagiogray I have considered the idea that they may be looking out for my best interest (in case of harassment accusations), however, there is no concern for my best interest when it comes to any other patient demographic. Frankly, if the patient is considered a young, attractive female then I have other staff intervening and providing care for my patient.

I've been discriminated against a few times by other staff members, never by the patients. Where I work, we have male/female patients that can range in age from 17 - 85+. The first incident occurred where my 4 patient assignment included a 20 year old female. One of the nurses I work with went to that patients room, after report, before I even had the opportunity to go do my initial assessment and was alerting her that she had a male nurse today and was asking her if she was okay with it. The nurse also explained that she would be assisted with a shower that day and that she(the nurse) would be able to help her(the patient) out instead of the male nurse (me). I found this to be very unprofessional for a few reasons: 1.) The nurse had her own patient assignment to manage; why is she checking in on my patient only minutes after report was over? 2.) I don't feel the nurse had any right to ask if the patient was okay with a "male" nurse. If I had the opportunity to assess the patient prior to the other nurse going to speak with her, I would have assessed how comfortable she was with me as her nurse. At that point, if she was not comfortable with a "male nurse," I would then have asked a female nurse to assist with personal care or have the assignment changed. The other incident occurred where the one patient in my assignment was a 32 year old female. Again, I was preparing to assist this patient with daily care (shower, dressing, pericare etc.) Without asking for any assistance, I had 2 female staff requesting to do the showering and dressing of the patient. On the surface, this is all fine and dandy (getting assistance from staff for patient care is great), however, the factors that motivated my co-workers to go out of there way and do additional work (by assisting my patient with shower, dressing etc) is what I find disturbing. My co-workers never ask to help me with work if my patients are in any demographic other than young adult females. Two of my co-workers even admitted to sending a male CNA home, who was providing constant observation on a young female patient, as they felt they could not trust him to be alone with a young female while she sleeps. They said they felt that he was a liability. Had I known about this incident when it happened, hell would have been raised, however, it was about 8 months after the incident that I was told the story. The above incidents leave me feeling frustrated with some of my co-workers and am not sure how I should address the issue if it arises again. Accusing someone of discrimination is quite an accusation. The only reason I've tolerated it so far is that I think these girls are just completely oblivious and ignorant to the impact of their actions. On the other hand, they are professionals and should know better. Anyone have any advice?

I am currently a 3rd year nursing student at Grant MacEwan. As the program is fairly new, there are still kinks to be worked out in the program but overall it is very good. Having a brand new facility and new technology is a definite plus. I have spoken with quite a few students from the U of A nursing program and none of them had positive things to say about the program. Being that the U of A uses CBL in the nursing program, you will being researching and teaching yourself alot of the material. Grant MacEwan used to use CBL, but since the new BSc Nursing program, they have gone back to the more traditional means of teaching. Overall, I do quite enjoy my educational experience at Grant MacEwan University thus far. I would highly recommend it over U of A.