What do you think about Males entering Nursing in the Medical Field?

I personally am a male, who is already pursing a degree in Nursing.

I have had people of both sex's telling me in the past that men have no buisness working in the field due to lack of compassion and caring compared to what a woman can give.

What do you personally think? Would you be bothered? Excited? Not care?

Please share your thoughts ^^

only you know you, some people believe women don't belong in the fire dept, police dept, military, etc. but they are because they proved themselves. Again I don't feel they belong in those professions but hey that's my personal opinion

I don't think you should care. I know of a couple of male nurses and they are doing fine. One of them is actually now a manager for a group of nurses where he works.

Part of being a nurse is being competent at the tasks you will need to do. If you don't know what you are doing, no matter how passionate or care will save someone's life if you put in tubes wrong or give the wrong amount of medication to a patient.

There are male nurses, and they are a minority. However, I do not think it has an effect if they are effective nurses or not. It goes from individual to individual. If you like what a nurse does then you should be fine.

It's not really funny, but it is sort of ironic that for so many years women have fought to be seen as equals in the workplace in so many careers that were typically thought of as male professions, and now recently as men enter the profession of nursing in greater numbers they are finally experiencing some of the same kind of attitudes that women faced in the past in other careers. :)

The attitudes you have encountered are still around, but it's getting better as more men enter the profession and their work shows for itself that they are every bit as compassionate and caring as women are. Some men in nursing have really fought hard to address the public perception of men in nursing, and there's a lot of debate surrounding issues like the label of "male nurse" itself (we don't go around saying, "I'm a female nurse", etc.).

How you choose to defend yourself and your career choice (if you choose to address those kinds of ignorant attitudes at all) is your choice. On a personal level, you shouldn't let other people's opinions matter, but on a professional level, maybe you have the oppotunity to speak to people about their attitudes and promote your profession and your gender's capabilities in that profession in order to change people's minds. It's up to you.

Good luck!

*edtied to add to Randy: just as you probably don't appreciate having men stereotyped as uncompassionate and unskilled, women don't appreciate being stereotyped as being catty and grudge holders who aren't "liked as well" by management. I don't know where you work, but all the nurses I work with (both men and women) get along well and are equally valuable to our hospital. If you work with catty nurses, maybe you should find somewhere that's a more positive working environment.

I have been a RN for 16yeras and am just as compassonate, educated, and clinically competent as any of the female Nurses I work with. The employers like us because we're not catty, gossiping, and holding grudges for twenty years. I am well accepted, make a great salary, and would do nothing else.

I personally think it's nice to see males in the nursing field. To have that much compassion to be there in the first place says a lot about who they are. Don't be bothered. Sometimes, there comes a situation where having a male around is very necessary, and I'll bet in those times of need you won't hear them complain.

It's nice to have guys around to break up the estrogen overload health care can be. I've worked with plenty of men one ICU had more men then women. There is so much more to nursing then compassion some people make it out to be all fuzzy and cuddly hold a patients hand sometimes you do but in reality you need to be able to make snap decisions that could either kill someone or save them all while pulling a 16 hour shift because you're short staffed and you could use the overtime. Also plenty of men are just as catty and gossip as much if not more so then women. It is equal opportunity drama at times :)

I have 6 male nurses working for me. They are all very caring nurses. I wouldn't give them up for anything. They do have a soft side when it comes to holding someone's hand justas the females do. Those that are negative about male nurses out there are living in the past.