Why more men are needed

[DrkCocoMurse215]

Why do you think more men are needed in nursing? And if you don't think so why?

I think one, it balances the work place a little, no offense but a lot of women can be catty while the guys tend to be more laid back. Also I think if more men enter the field a different perspective on nursing may develop to where society, which can be ignorant about what it really takes to be a nurse, won't think of it as a feminine profession and might give it a little more respect. Just my opinion... What's yours?

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

If you want to care for patient and you give a ****, come on in. If not, stay the heck out!

AGREE!!!

[amoLucia]

More men in nursing? Damn straight - bring them in!

Why? Because I think the standards of nursing as an occupation will rise significantly with increased numbers of men choosing to make nursing a lifelong commitment. While, yes, the number of men entering nursing is slowly increasing, it's no great big increase. Bottom line is not too many men remain in front-line bedside care like the women. The rewards for job satisfaction are just not there for a traditional male role.

Guys I've known go on for advanced degrees with advanced positions in education, administration, advanced clinical positions such as RNFA, PA/NP, nurse anesthesist, etc. Better recognition, better money/benes, better time, etc.

There is precedent. Teaching/education used to be exclusively female. When men returned post WW2, they took advantage of their GI benefits and went to school. They then moved into teaching where the standards of the profession rose in prestige and compensation.

Along the way, men took advantage of unionization which helped them.

So yes, more men are needed in nursing, but we need BIG, BIG numbers to pull us up to make a significant impact.

[Do-over, ASN, RN]

I am sick of hearing about how "catty" us women are in groups. Maybe I am naïve, or I am just too busy working to notice. Maybe, because I tend to not engage in that sort of behavior at work, those sort stay away from me.

You know what, some people are a$%ho#*s, and some are not. I am not.

However, I do agree with a previous poster that more men in the field would likely increase pay.

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

maybe for them.... Historically, men make more than women. I hope that trend doesn't continue into nursing. I know that as new grads, we all got the same pay. It will be interesting to see what happens with my orienting partner. He is male. As we climb the clinical ladder, it will see if the pay goes up the same.

[MedChica]

With more men we would DEFINITELY see an increase in pay. Nurses do stand together but female nurses, imo, seem to fight for everyone but themselves. It's ridiculous.

Men tend to be more 'laid back'? Yeah, right. Gay men tend to be extremely 'catty' and everyone has their own tale of the 'aggressive, belittling bear of a physician who woke up on the wrong side of bed, like, every morning'. Yeah, and they're usually male. The biggest d--ks you'll run across, by far.

I'm a woman. I spent 10 years in the military. People still consider the military to be a primarily male occupation though many have dropped the whole 'our boys' schpeal. Never bothered me.

Nursing isn't respected? Of course, it is. It's seen as a feminine occupation but it still considered a respectable - even, honorable - one. Maybe you don't think so because you're male and feel 'a certain kind of way' about being 'a male nurse'. That's nothing to do with nursing and everything to do with you(R ego).

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Since ~1974, the American Assembly for Men in Nursing has been promoting nursing as a career alternative for men. My BSN program graduated 4 men in class 28 in 1982.

Great thread started in 2002:Are you MAN enough to be a Nurse? - General Nursing Discussion

When the Oregon Center for Nursing released this campaign in 2002, men in nursing were ~ 5 % of profession. Allnurses created the Men in Nursing forum in ~2003 to give voice and support to our male colleagues.

Ten years latter, AACN reports that the percentage of men in baccalaureate and master’s nursing programs were 11.4% and 9.9% in 2011-- doubling enrollment during this interval

New AACN Data Show an Enrollment Surge in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs Amid Calls for More Highly Educated Nurses

[wooh, BSN, RN]

Of course we need men in nursing. Us poor widdle women need some big strong men to come save us. Thank goodness we have male nursing students here to show us how catty we are.

Or to get us to do his homework for him, as the constant, "and why?" of the questions sounds wayyyyyy homeworky.

[duskyjewel]

First, I love SoldierNurse22.

Second, I am SO SICK of this whiny caterwauling about how nursing is undervalued because it's a female profession, and we don't stand up for ourselves because we were taught as girls not to fight, and if more men are in the profession its estimation in the public eye will rise. (Frankly, if you were taught not to stand up for yourself or fight for what you want because you're a girl, you had awful parents. But you're an adult now, so grow up.)

What a load of bra-burning bullcrap. Pull your heads out of the 1970s and open your eyes already. We fought those battles. We WON. Now it's our responsibility to compete and cooperate as INDIVIDUALS on MERIT. Put up or shut up.

[stratus93]

I have plenty of respect for Nurses female and male alike. Why alot more men arent going into the field I wouldnt know. I am a Male and I going into this field to make a difference in some ones life and maybe even save a life or two.

[_firefly, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I think the public stereotype of a nurse is a female is caring, compassionate and spends her day listening to patient concerns while changing beds and wounds. She is there to provide comfort and emotional support. That was probably the way things were near the dawn of nursing. However much of western nursing today is about utilizing technology, diagnostic tools, pharmaceuticals, robotics, evidence and research, nursing processes, and the scientific method. There is nothing particularly feminine nor masculine in any of these things. From what I've seen, nursing today is much more about procedures and protocols than it is about spending extensive time nurturing and 'nursing' patients back to life.

Of course the beauty of nursing is that there is a huge variety of jobs. Some are much more involved with nurturing such as L&D and NICU and there you find mostly women. Others jobs are more about procedures such as OR and ER and there you find a closer to ratio and in some cases mostly men. Men are just not typically wired to be as nurturing.

Are more men needed in nursing? Yes. Every nurse I've ever talked to has agreed. If nothing else, men bring some muscle which is handy with combative patients and moving patients. As others have stated, men sometimes feel more comfortable talking to other men. Also, as I recently found out, patients from some cultures will not even listen to women in the hospital. Sometimes people just feel more comfortable talking to someone of the opposite sex as well. That said, I still think there is generally very little about nursing in modern day western medicine that is particularly masculine nor feminine.

I'm new though, so it would be interesting to hear from some more experienced people.

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

I am so tired of hearing how men are needed to help with the heavy lifting. We have 2 male nurses on my floor. They are both terrible at lifting. Neither one of them has any idea of how to use proper body mechanics and work as a team. One younger guy is headed for a back injury because he s convinced he can show us women how strong he is.

Enough already.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I think the loss of human empathy and kindness is one of the greatest disservices to nursing today. The claim that in the past nurses were

spending extensive time nurturing and 'nursing' patients back to life.

is wrong........ for who does everyone think we, the nurses with experience, who took care of all of this developing technology. We are the pioneers in the field of medicine in the last 40 with it's great strides in technology and intervention medicine. However....We were capable in caring for the technology AND the patient.

I remember hanging the new med Nitroglycerin....we called it Tridil....I remember the first time I gave this brand new drug TPA that was made for dissolving clots stopping a heart attack. I remember admitting back the first patient with a stent placed. Heck I remember the first plasty, balloon intervention for we were the first in our region. I remember being thrilled when we got out first lab printer how thrilled we were......our first computer so we could look up our labs. But we still had time to comfort our patients

New drugs, new interventions, new procedures, new meds, new interventions.....The past 40 years or so have been AMAZING in technology advancement and interventions as medicine grew at a phenomenal pace. We have seen certain diagnoses be almost completely eradicated because of interventions with technology like the Left ventricular aneurysm that essentially has been eradicated due to interventions cardiology and thrombolytics.

Who does the present generation think cared for the high technology patients?? WE DID! The generation of nurses that right now are considered obsolete with all of our bedside skills and unscientific. Who manually figured out Cardiac outputs and indexes and SVR etc because the monitor didn't have the technology....ps we didn't have calculators....so that these new medicines could be tested and administered. WE DID!

I think the "stereotype of a nurse is a female is caring, compassionate and spends her day listening to patient concerns while changing beds and wounds" is over a hundred years old with good ole Flo and have little to do with nursing in the latter part of the 20th century. I think that "utilizing technology, diagnostic tools, pharmaceuticals, robotics, evidence and research, nursing processes, and the scientific method"......was perfected by my generation who is a female that is "caring, compassionate and spends her day listening to patient concerns while changing beds and wounds"........in no way diminished our capabilities as participants in the scientific process because we "cared" and were compassionate.

Patient satisfaction is a big deal but it isn't new.....has the concept have to be reintroduced because of an entire new generation feels that it isn't a part of nursing today? That technology superceeds humanity? That "caring" for patients and having compassion somehow interferes with how technology functions or makes us incapable of doing both?

I think that the development of certain technology have made us distant and cold because it limits the requirements of human face to face interaction. I believe that patients and their families are acting out because they are denied the one thing they crave.....attention. Like petulant or ignored children...... they will act out in order to get the attention they feel they deserve and certainly need....even if it is negative/destructive for at least they are getting some kind of human attention/interaction.

I think it's mistake to believe that nursing now doesn't require compassion, caring, and empathy for when we are frightened worried and scared even the manliest of men need someone to nurture them, care about them....make them feel as if they are important as a human when they are surrounded by technology.

I don't feel we need to lose our humanity and compassion in the name of science.

There was a thread not that long ago about the loss of the "art" of nursing. I think we have and it isn't necessarily a good thing.