flmd

Serious answer: 1. More respect from Doctors, family members, pt's, PA's, NP's, management, etc. - I am never disrespected or talked down to by anyone that I work with. 2. Makes the unit life easier with me helping with lifting, ambulating, restraining confused pts, getting up in pt's or family members when they are out of line as that stops with the quickness when they see a guy get up in their business. 3. Left out of unit drama/gossip. Not that my unit is very dramatic or gossipful in the first place, but I am happy to be left out of that nonsense. Ive learned over the past few years that women can be totally nice to you to your face, but the instant the day shift or night shift leaves, the **** talking may commence. 4. Managers and HR like diversity in nursing. They know that male RN's bring a lot to the table and I've personally never had a tough time during a job interview or during performance reviews, etc. All my job interviews so far have been really laid back and they were talking like I already had the job a few minutes after walking in the door. One Nursing Manager didn't even bother looking at my resume - she took me on a tour through the hospital right away and then asked if I had any questions for her (which I did of course), but she didn't ask me any questions about my work history and experience. 5. Female cowokers like having a guy around to shoot the **** and be raunchy with. My female coworkers on night shift are really laid back and we have a grand ol' time once 11pm or 0000 hits and everyone settles in for the night. I've learned some incredibly personal and sexual stuff from my coworkers (with the implication that I never gossip about it of course). 6. Had a few coworkers come on to me; dated one of them. Not as easy as it seems though to get a hot young RN girlfriend as almost 99% of the ones I work with are either engaged or married.

I have not found this to be true in my experience. My backround: 3 years of experience as a ADN working on 3 units; 1 was a combined med/tele floor (took just about any kind of pt), 2nd was a seasonal tele overflow unit (mostly everything again), and my current job that I've been working for close to a year now is on a Cardiovascular Stepdown Unit (cardiac and non-infectious tele pt's). In these 3 years and thousands of pt's that I've personally cared for, I have had maybe 3 female pt's who absolutely refused having a male nurse. 99.9% of female pt's have no problem having a male nurse as long as you are open, honest, respectful and ask them if they are comfortable with you doing certain things (e.g. baths, foley insertions, etc.) Sometimes I will have to ask a coworker to insert a foley on a shy pt, but only 3 or so pt's in 3 years have absolutely refused having me as a male nurse. That said, I am absolutely respectful of a female pt's wishes. On the rare occasion that I get one that truly does not wish to have a male RN, I will ask one of my female coworkers to switch assignments.

I'd like to know this as well.

Thanks for sharing. It's nice to know that there are others out there that have overcome this. The balance thing I'm not so much worried about although I can see how that is probably going to be really inconvenient...it's the possibility of facial paralysis that worries me the most. Apparently the facial nerve is very close to the auditory nerve and there's like a 5% chance of some facial symptoms after the surgery. I am seeing one of the best neurosurgeons in the state though for my operation, so hopefully I'll have minimal complications. How long have you been a nurse? And did you have your surgery while you were a nurse or before you became one?

!! This is exactly what I was hoping to hear. It's really relieving to hear that there is someone out there who had the exact same problem and operation and went on to become a nurse. Thanks for sharing this with me. The future doesn't look so gloomy now. I'm having my surgery next monday on Dec. 5 and I've been having a lot of anxiety and I've been really worrying a lot about the future and whether or not I could still pursue a nursing career, but after hearing this I'm feeling a lot more optimistic now. I've briefly looked at the ANA, but I didn't investigate the site in depth. I'm going to rectify that now. Thanks man. edit: do you mind if I ask you if your wife had any balance issues after the operation? Did she have to do any rehab? Thanks.

Wow that's awesome. I'm not sure how well an electronic stethoscope would help me, considering my auditory nerve gets cut during the surgery, but your story is really inspiring. I feel a lot better now knowing that there are people out there with HOH/deafness that are able to overcome such disabilities and are able to nurse it up out there :)

Great. That's awesome to hear (pun intended). Now I just hope I don't have long term balance issues or facial paralysis as complications of the surgery that sometimes happens with this type of surgery. I have a feeling those types of issues would be a lot more difficult to overcome than one sided deafness.

Thanks for the responses. Do you have to use a specialty stethoscope SuesquatchRN? When I talked with the director of our nursing program and the reason why I had to withdraw for the semester, she mentioned that there was a person at the college who can get special stethoscopes or whatever for people with disabilities. Do you use something like that? And aside from having to turn your good ear toward the general direction that noise is coming from, how has being HOH affected you as a nurse? Do you run into any other problems that a person with regular hearing wouldn't?

Hey everyone, I'm a 1st year nursing student and I had to drop out of this falls semester (med/surg). The reason for this is that I'm having brain surgery next week to remove a large acoustic neuroma...a benign tumor that has been causing me hearing loss and which is compressing my 4th ventricle and putting pressure on my brainstem. The surgical approach the neurosurgeon wants to do is a translabyrinthe, in which they go through the middle ear. This approach destroys the middle ear, meaning I'll be permanently deaf in that ear after the surgery. He wants to do that approach instead of a retro-parietal approach because I have very little usable hearing in my right ear and apparently the translabyrinthe is the preferred approach for pts like me. Anyway, I just wanted to see if anyone here at allnurses has unilateral deafness (for whatever reason). Can you still work effectively if you are deaf in one ear? Do you have any problems with a stethoscope or any other things in the hospital environment? I love what I'm doing and I don't want to give up my dream of being a nurse because of something like this. I'd be crushed if for some reason this precluded me from becoming a nurse. Can you become a nurse with a disability like this? Thanks.