7 Myths and Facts about Male Nurses

November 11th, 2009 | admin | Uncategorized

Contrary to common believe male nursing was the most dominant area through out the ages and especially in history. Male nurses are males who work in medical fraternity as nurses to look after the patients along female nurses who in contemporary era have taken whole and sole responsibility of nursing.  Below are some of the known myth and fact related to Male Nurses and Nursing.

1. The world’s first nursing school is believed to be open at in India around 250 B.C and at that time due to religious conventions, it were male who were considered to be pure enough to be in profession of nursing.  However, from rearing child from birth and looking for parents at old age nurses performs 99 percent of the nursing task and are unpaid for it.
2. During the Byzantine Empire nursing was only done by males. In 300 B.C, when plague spread around entire Europe than at time male nurses were only care giver. There are many examples of the males through out history where nurses were male and due to religion women were barred from practicing nursing.
3. The Alexian Brothers, in the 1300s, provided nursing care for the victims of the Black Death. Nursing schools for men were very common in the United States till the early 1900. Yet by 1930.men is only a 1% of RN in the United States as they come across other lucrative job options and left nursing.
4. In 1971, ‘The American Assembly For Men” in Nursing was founded and the main objective of AAMN was to provide framework for nurses as a to meet as a group to discuss and influence factors which make an impression men as a nurses.
5. During the inflation of 1980-1990 a shortage of nurses with a rise in nurse’s wage and change in gender attitude once again introduced men into this profession.  Since then more and more number of males are coming into this career and finding it to be very challenging career option.
6. They come to the profession for the same reason a woman does. They want to take care of sick and injured people in this challenging job with reasonable job security and wages.  As in America there is an acute shortage of nurses, and to overcome this problem many government and nursing schools are recruiting men as nurses. For instance, when the University of Pittsburgh increased its admission for nursing program, the number of male applicants rose to a considerable level. Male nurses can commonly seen working in US Armed Forces and VA medial facilities.
7. Though instances of discrimination to male nurses are rare still there are male nurses who feel that they are not treated equally and in right manner. They feel that they need to prove themselves more when compared with their female counter part on issues of promotions and part time job opportunities. In family friendly, environments it is the chances for women to work in nights than men. Moreover male nurses feel it difficult to work in maternity and gynecological sections of hospitals.