MEN IN NURSING
From the early twentieth century, nursing has been a female-dominated profession until now. Ironically, the earlier periods of the nursing profession witnessed a splendid array of men in nursing who constituted some of the great heroes of the profession. The Middle Ages witnessed great male nurses such as St. Benedict who started the Benedictine nursing order while the Alexian brothers, a male religious order providing nursing services for patients of the black death plague in the 14th century. These two organizations are still in existence today.
There were other military, religious and lay orders of men that were involved in nursing services during the Middle Ages, the most famous of which were the Order of the Holy Spirit, the Order of Saint Lazarus, the Knights Hospitalers, the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony and the Teutonic Knights among others, while there were other famous individual male nurses such as St. John of God, James Derham and St. Camillus de Lellis who invented the symbol of the red cross and created the first ambulance service.
Until the early 1900 in the United States, males constituted over half of those that provided paid nursing services to the sick. But by 1930, the percentage of Registered men in nursing nurses fell to near zero, 1% at the most, reaching a maximum of 12% today.
A 1996 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses by the Health Resources and Services Administration showed that approximately 5.4% of the 2.1 million registered nurses employed in the United States are men and that about 13% of students enrolled in American schools are men with an instance only two men were in a class of 80 students.
Several explanations have been suggested for this glaring upturn and disparity, the most popular among which is the public and professional prejudices which male nurses faced in those days many of which still exist today.
Because of the whopping preponderance of females in the nursing profession, the American society soon came to regard the nursing profession as essentially a female job. Correspondingly, males in the nursing profession came to be regarded with a sense of suspicion, derision and in some cases discrimination and rejection, both by the public and hospital patients.
Even the nursing education system did not help matters as educational materials were oriented to the female gender, while most textbook authors made no mention of the male gender except as the patient and or as the anatomy to be studied and nursing school faculties employed feminine pronouns when discussing nurses.
There were other forms of discrimination. For instance, men in nursing wishing to work in the fields of obstetrics and gynecology faced obstacles with some physicians in these areas expressly restraining male nurses from attending to their patients. There were also instances where male nurses were not allowed to enter the delivery room and had to stand at the entrance to steal a sight of the delivery.
Men in nursing on their part are often embarrassed by and find it difficult having to attend to female patients. A male nurse was reported to have remarked that he could never work in a maternity unit, recalling one instance while he was in school when he was asked to interpret for a new mother who did not speak English. His instructor was showing the mother how to hold her breast and the newborn so that the baby would latch on to her breast . The male nurse said he could tell that the mother was uncomfortable as she would not feed her baby while he was present which made him feel uncomfortable too and a sense of not belonging in the environment.
This is hardly an isolated case as most women generally, particularly young women feel embarrassed being cared for by a male nurse. This is more so for women raised in societies and cultures where it is regarded as a taboo for men to see women in their under wears, much less nude. Thus, many postpartum mothers decline the care of male nurses because they feel more comfortable with a women nurses.
Some men in nursing have also reported a level of inferiority complex at being looked upon as mere appendages and ‘handmaids’ of the doctor. There are other embarrassments associated with male nursing.
Many male nurses face a lot of ridicule from both patients, friends and relations who have a hard time dealing with the fact of a male nurse care giver, friend, relation or even parent because they think that only women can be nurses.
A more serious and embarrassing type of ridicule is the tendency for people to label male nurses as gay or homosexuals due to their close working relationship with women combined with the assumption that that only women can be nurses. Others view male nurses as former medical students who had to drop down to nursing because they were unable to make the doctoral education.
In spite of these negative images associated with male nursing, there are positive images and credits from across the public and the nursing profession to the effect that males are actually better suited to the nursing profession, particularly to its pressures and demands. In spite of reports of discrimination against men in nursing in promotions and other remunerations, it is generally believed that hospital authorities treat male doctors with greater respect and treat them differently than their female counterparts.
Many male nurses find the nursing career a challenging and marketable career with a lot of opportunities, hence the nursing profession is currently recording a rapid increase in male population. There has also been a corresponding increase in the number of organizations that support men in nursing. Visit nursingdotcom [http://nursingdotcom.com/]
There were other military, religious and lay orders of men that were involved in nursing services during the Middle Ages, the most famous of which were the Order of the Holy Spirit, the Order of Saint Lazarus, the Knights Hospitalers, the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony and the Teutonic Knights among others, while there were other famous individual male nurses such as St. John of God, James Derham and St. Camillus de Lellis who invented the symbol of the red cross and created the first ambulance service.
Until the early 1900 in the United States, males constituted over half of those that provided paid nursing services to the sick. But by 1930, the percentage of Registered men in nursing nurses fell to near zero, 1% at the most, reaching a maximum of 12% today.
A 1996 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses by the Health Resources and Services Administration showed that approximately 5.4% of the 2.1 million registered nurses employed in the United States are men and that about 13% of students enrolled in American schools are men with an instance only two men were in a class of 80 students.
Several explanations have been suggested for this glaring upturn and disparity, the most popular among which is the public and professional prejudices which male nurses faced in those days many of which still exist today.
Because of the whopping preponderance of females in the nursing profession, the American society soon came to regard the nursing profession as essentially a female job. Correspondingly, males in the nursing profession came to be regarded with a sense of suspicion, derision and in some cases discrimination and rejection, both by the public and hospital patients.
Even the nursing education system did not help matters as educational materials were oriented to the female gender, while most textbook authors made no mention of the male gender except as the patient and or as the anatomy to be studied and nursing school faculties employed feminine pronouns when discussing nurses.
There were other forms of discrimination. For instance, men in nursing wishing to work in the fields of obstetrics and gynecology faced obstacles with some physicians in these areas expressly restraining male nurses from attending to their patients. There were also instances where male nurses were not allowed to enter the delivery room and had to stand at the entrance to steal a sight of the delivery.
Men in nursing on their part are often embarrassed by and find it difficult having to attend to female patients. A male nurse was reported to have remarked that he could never work in a maternity unit, recalling one instance while he was in school when he was asked to interpret for a new mother who did not speak English. His instructor was showing the mother how to hold her breast and the newborn so that the baby would latch on to her breast . The male nurse said he could tell that the mother was uncomfortable as she would not feed her baby while he was present which made him feel uncomfortable too and a sense of not belonging in the environment.
This is hardly an isolated case as most women generally, particularly young women feel embarrassed being cared for by a male nurse. This is more so for women raised in societies and cultures where it is regarded as a taboo for men to see women in their under wears, much less nude. Thus, many postpartum mothers decline the care of male nurses because they feel more comfortable with a women nurses.
Some men in nursing have also reported a level of inferiority complex at being looked upon as mere appendages and ‘handmaids’ of the doctor. There are other embarrassments associated with male nursing.
Many male nurses face a lot of ridicule from both patients, friends and relations who have a hard time dealing with the fact of a male nurse care giver, friend, relation or even parent because they think that only women can be nurses.
A more serious and embarrassing type of ridicule is the tendency for people to label male nurses as gay or homosexuals due to their close working relationship with women combined with the assumption that that only women can be nurses. Others view male nurses as former medical students who had to drop down to nursing because they were unable to make the doctoral education.
In spite of these negative images associated with male nursing, there are positive images and credits from across the public and the nursing profession to the effect that males are actually better suited to the nursing profession, particularly to its pressures and demands. In spite of reports of discrimination against men in nursing in promotions and other remunerations, it is generally believed that hospital authorities treat male doctors with greater respect and treat them differently than their female counterparts.
Many male nurses find the nursing career a challenging and marketable career with a lot of opportunities, hence the nursing profession is currently recording a rapid increase in male population. There has also been a corresponding increase in the number of organizations that support men in nursing. Visit nursingdotcom [http://nursingdotcom.com/]
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