Men in Nursing: Challenges and Opportunities

This presentation delves into the history and background of male nurses in the nursing profession, highlighting the discrimination and inequality they often face. It discusses the challenges faced by male nurses in providing care and the discomfort some patients feel in certain healthcare settings. The presentation also emphasizes the importance of awareness and gender equality in nursing practice, and recommends including this topic in classroom learning to increase knowledge and confidence among nursing students.

Nursing as a profession
Men in Nursing
Background
The history or background of male nurse is often viewed along with the nursing synonymously. The nursing history depicts that male nurses have been in existence for over 2000
years (Christensen 2016). However, some studies revealed that male nurses experience discrimination and inequality while working with female colleagues across the world (Yu
et al. 2018). The nursing profession is generally perceived as the female profession (Ross 2017). In a literature, the author indicated that in the last 166 years nursing profession is
being dominated by females after the sterling work of Florence Nightingale. The author argued that it should be remembered that patron saint of nursing was a man (Cottingham
2017).
Method
Being a nursing student, I want to choose nursing as a profession in future and hence, the
topic “men in nursing” seemed to be more interesting as there are conflicts and
controversies regarding the role of men over women in providing care. Initially I started
with a desktop research and reviewed many literatures from Google Scholar, PubMed and
other online databases. Researches of various authors in this regard helped me to get a clear
idea about the topic. After a thorough research I realized it should not be limited to
theoretical basis and then spoke to my colleagues regarding the topic and gathered more
information. However, in order to gather knowledge from a larger group as well as
internationally, I used twitter to mobilize the support and to find evidences from a practical
ground. Various male nurses along with the female nurses shared their experience while
working in the clinical settings to differentiate the dominance of gender in this profession.
Findings
Although, literatures indicated the existence of male nurses
even in the ancient times but in practical settings, men face
challenges while providing care in many aspects (Paterson et al.
2018). Discussion revealed, patients feel uncomfortable in
maternity care with male nurses (Saber and Ibrahim 2019). In
healthcare of East London and specifically, in my nursing
practice, men nurses are there and they work with equal
efficiencies and gender-gap is also concerning for them while
pursuing career in future.
My Research planning in a nutshell
Online search and literature search
Discussion with colleagues
Discussion in social media
Discussion
Awareness can play a huge role in recovering the gap of gender in
nursing practice. Men nurses can be equally efficient and can provide
effective care as the female nurses provide.
Recommendation
This topic should be included in the classroom learning with the other
nursing theories and frameworks to increase the knowledge of the
nursing students and it will help the male nurses to gain more
confidence. I will also utilize this knowledge in my clinical settings in
future while performing as a professional nurse.
References
Christensen, M., 2016. Men in nursing: The early years. Journal of Nursing Education & Practice, 7(5), pp.94-103.
Cottingham, M.D., 2017. Caring moments and their men: Masculine emotion practice in nursing. NORMA, 12(3-4), pp.270-285.
Paterson, B., Shewry, B., Bradley, P. and Bowie, V., 2018. Gender and restraint training. Why are all the trainers men and why might this really matter?. Graham Connelly, 17(3), p.49.
Ross, D.J., 2017. Perceptions of men in the nursing profession: historical and contemporary issues. Links to Health and Social Care, 2(1), pp.4-20.
Saber, N.M. and Ibrahim, R.E.S., 2019. Challenges Facing Male Students Nurses during Attending Maternity Nursing Clinical Course: Suggested Guidelines of Actions. American Journal of Nursing, 7(2), pp.160-166.
Yu, H.Y., Lou, J.H., Eng, C.J., Yang, C.I. and Lee, L.H., 2018. Organizational citizenship behaviour of men in nursing professions: Career stage perspectives. Collegian, 25(1), pp.19-26.
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