Contemporary Nursing: A Noticeable Male Difference



Contemporary Nursing: A Noticeable Male Difference

Darren Blackadar

November 08, 2010

Introduction

The health care system is seeing the number of nurses entering the field lowering while current nursing population is aging. This is becoming an ever increasing issue and perhaps a crisis if left unattended. Male nurses in the field have remained at a constant level but have not seen much of an increase.

After reviewing the selected literature I found two main themes common to all the articles that I reviewed. First of these two themes would be what I term the public’s perception of what a nurse should be and its effect on teachers, trainers, administrators, supervisors and other nursing staff as well as its effect on the perceived masculinity of the male nurse. The second theme I found was the issue surrounding the retention and training of new male nurses.

“At the individual or personal level, the goal of nursing is to promote, maintain, and restore health and well-being through self care. At the collective level, the goal of nursing also includes eliminating health disparities. Accordingly, nursing actions also embrace advocating for healthy public policy, collaborating with multiple sectors, and engaging in social-political action” (Ogilvie &Reutter, 2003)”. (St FXU, SON Philosophy, 2009, p5)

This paper will specifically deal with the health care and its continuing struggle to remove missing gaps in the health care field. (Ogilvie &Reutter, 2003)”. (St FXU, SON Philosophy, 2009, p5). I will speak to the lack of male nurses in the nursing field and why many of them leave.

I will discuss the obvious disparities of males in the nursing profession and its effect

on training and retention of nurses in general as well as a more directed discussion

involving the male presence in nursing. During my discussion I will take two points

of view. I will take the view from the many papers and articles written on the subject and I will also take a personal view. By doing this I will synergise both view points and come to a single conclusion involving various suggestions for improvement.

Discussion

In the Beginning

I first became interested in medicine at a very young age. My goal was simply to become a family physician. Well as it happens...life happens. I never realised my goal. Several years later I was presented with an opportunity to once again pursue my goal in medicine. Over the years I have had many experiences with the medical profession both personally and with my own children. It was then that I would slightly change my goal and pursue my career in medicine but in the field of nursing.

Like anyone about to embark on a new career and leaving everything you have done and know behind, I had questions and lots of them. The university that I was to be attending certainly answered most of them however I wanted a uniquely male perspective on what I was about to begin. The trouble is that I do not know any male nurses. When I went looking they were few and far between and could not offer me any unifying answers on the questions I had. I continued ahead and was determined to find these answers on my own through personal experience.

Men only make up between 5% and 10% of the workforce in the UK, USA and Canada (Brown, 2009, p150). When I read this statement and many others with similar numbers, I thought to myself; why are there so few men in such a gratifying career with plenty of opportunities as well as great monetary rewards and benefits. During my reading it turns out that the reasons are various and all with validity. Some were unhappy with the hours, salary and lack of ability to move up as well as other reasons. Oddly enough the only one that was not common with both women and men was the salary considerations. Both groups had similar reasons for leaving the nursing profession.

Rajapaksa and Rothstein (2009), said with a shortage of RN’s we will need various ways to get more nurses through training and retention and specifically pointed out that one of the least represented demo graphics is men.

Reasons often cited for many current departures of men in the nursing field are:

➢ 69.7% cited income (vs. 32.6% for female)

➢ 43.4% cited hours (vs. 46.2% for female)

➢ 63.6% cited current job rewards (vs. 46.1% for female)

(Rajapaksa &Rothstein (2009)

What are we going to do?

What are we going do? When I say that I really mean what are WE going to do as a community, a province, a country. I think we need to go back as a society to a grass roots movement; we need to appreciate more nurses and encourage more of the younger generation to enter the field of nursing both male and female. Removing stereotypes and barriers is key to increasing our numbers. Two stereotypes that are often mentioned when discussing male nurses is that they do not have the same ability to provide the same compassionate care as their female counterparts. The other stereotype seen is that male nurses are mostly homosexual. I am unsure why this is because many of the first nurses were male. Education and example can lead to removing these stereotypes in the future.

Conclusion

The biggest part to think about when trying to encourage more males to enter the nursing profession is to consider the value added if the health system could attract more male nurses. I feel that there are several facets that would have a positive impact. First many clients may feel more comfortable with a male nurse. Male clients may be more inclined to discuss issued with a male nurse that they may not with a female nurse due to possible embarrassment. Seeing more males in nursing may also encourage other males to enter the nursing profession and hence increase the numbers.

The goal is simple yet achieving the goal may be difficult according to current trends. “The most frequently mentioned solution to the shortage of nurses is to educate more nurses. However, new entrants into nursing are not increasing at a rate sufficient to meet the demand and nursing workforce is growing older” (Rajapaksa &Rothstein p 196 (2009)

The two areas of focus are to actively recruit and retain nurses especially those males that are in nursing or are considering a career in nursing. Changing the perception and stereotyping of males in a predominately female profession is the other area of focus. By doing this we could hope to shrink the disparity that we are now experiencing in the health service community.

References

Brown, B. (2009) Men in nursing: Re-evaluating masculinities, re-evaluating gender.

Contemporary Nurse: A Journal for the Australian Nursing Profession, 33(2), 120-129. Retrieved from

C.B.C. News (2009). Recruiting men to nursing remains a challenge. Retrieved

September 21, 2010, from

Cowen, P.S.& Moorhead, S. (2006). Current issues in nursing. St. Louis, Missouri:

Mosby Elsevier

Grady, C.A., Stewardson, G.A., Hall, J.L. (2006) Faculty notions regarding caring in

male nursing students. Journal of Nursing Education, 47(7), 315-323. Retrieved from

Ierardi, J.A., Fitzgerald, D.A., Holland, D.T. (2008) Exploring male students’ educational

in an associate degree nursing program. Journal of Nursing Education, 49(4), 215-217. Retrieved from

Miller, K.L. (2010) The male nursing student experience: Learning to care for a breastfeeding

family. B.Sc. Nursing Thesis – Saint Francis Xavier University.

Rajapaksa, S, Rothstein, W. (2009) Factors that influence the decisions of men and

women nurses to leave nursing. Nursing Forum, 44(3), 195-206. Retrieved from

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