Men as Nurses

 Men as Nurses

Whoever said retirement was fun. Just returned from moving my daughter from an apartment (that is another story) with no air condition to a 2-story duplex in Tallahassee, Fl. Who goes to Florida in June? HOT, HUMID and BUGS everywhere. While relaxing over a cold drink my daughter introduced me to a young man who wanted to be a nurse. We talked about what nurses do and some of the challenges he faces going into a female dominated field. In spite of aggressive recruitment of males into the nursing field, males make up only about six to seven percent of the nursing populations.
Nursing is a very challenging career and he should be of what he wanted to do. Since the educational choices are to commit 2, 4, 6, years or more only to find out that he does not like working the long hours and on weekends, nights and most holidays. What we did not talk about was the discriminatory practices that he might have to endure such as thinking he was “gay” because he chose to work in a female dominated field. He would also be called on to assist his female counterpart to lift and turn patients, to catherize male patients and to “fix” things. That he might be avoided, or left on his own to fend for himself. A recent situation occurred at my last employment, rehabilitation, skilled nursing facility where a new hire, a “male” nurse RN just out of orientation class was given a ward for the evening shift. He was in charge of 30 patients, 4 nursing assistant and he was expecting a new admission. Aside from the regular duties of passing medications, doing treatment, taking off orders, calling doctors, he had an admission to do. It takes me 2 hours with no interruption to complete an admission and I have 30+ years of experience. The RN Supervisor, a female did not offer to assist nor checked on him to see if he needed help. I never saw that young man again. I did tell the young man that nursing is a great career. I loved nursing. I might not like the politics, regulations, policies and all that paperwork but I thought nursing is a great field with varied opportunities. Nurses can choose to work in the hospitals, clinics, home health, surgical nursing, insurance auditors, in billing, nurse consultants, pharmaceutical representatives, Administrators to just name a few. Above all Nurses are the Patients Advocate, an advocate for his care confronting physicians‘, as well as management for the good of the patient. That what a nurse does.