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Men at Work Thanks in part to campaigns designed to appeal to masculine sensibilities, more men are entering nursing—and discovering the joys of a profession traditionally dominated by women  Courtesy of University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing More NurseWeek Features  Smoke-Free Zone Nurses and patients tackle nicotine addictionBloodless Survival Surgical techniques to use when transfusion drops out of the equation The number of men in nursing is expected to continue to rise, as nursing jobs remain plentiful in an unstable economy. Mike Leach (right), a University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing student, trains for worklife on the nursing floor.At the most recent American Nurses Association annual convention, Gene Tranbarger, Ed.D., RN, saw signs that times might finally be changing for men in nursing: They were on the bathroom doors.Tranbarger, president of the American Assembly for Men in Nursing, has attended ANA conventions since the late 1950s. “One of the first actions was to declare all the bathrooms female,” he said-a common practice at conventions of any group where most members are women. Men had to go to their hotel rooms or into another building to use the facilities, he said.This year, he saw signs on every men’s room door reading, “Ladies, out of consideration for our male colleagues, please do not use this room.”It seems like a little thing, Tranbarger said, but he sees it as a tremendous change from even two or three years ago. The image of nursing as an exclusively women’s domain finally may be going the way of crisp white uniforms and hats. “I think more and more men are being welcomed into the profession and are being sought out,” Tranbarger said.Driven by the nursing shortage, nursing schools and hospitals are making a concerted effort to woo a previously untapped base of men, as well as trying to change the image of nursing as a women’s profession. Campaigns with slogans like “Looking for a Few Good Men” and “Are You Man Enough to be a Nurse?” have attracted national media attention, with stories in The New York Times and the Associated Press.According to the March 2000 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, 146,902-or 5.4 percent-of the estimated 2.7 million RNs in the United States were men. More recent figures from the U.S. Department of Labor show numbers as high as nearly 7 percent, up from less than 3 percent in 1980. The number of men going into nursing is expected to continue to increase, as nursing jobs remain plentiful in an unstable economy.Attitude adjustmentBut, as some men point out, recruitment is not enough. To successfully bring in and keep men in nursing, they say, the profession needs to examine its own attitudes about why men have been excluded in the past and work to eliminate factors that might be keeping them away or making them drop out now.The last time Tranbarger remembers so much publicity about men in nursing was in the ’50s, when he and other men were pioneering the male movement into a profession that had been almost exclusively female since the beginning of the 20th century. “Then, we were like Siamese twins,” he said. “We were an oddity.”No longer. Nursing schools are changing the colors and photos on their brochures, eliminating the pastel pinks and lavenders and the pictures of smiling young women. Recruiters for schools and hospitals are placing ads in sports magazines and at sporting events.A Harley rider, a black belt, a snowboarder and a combat medic are among the nine nurses staring toughly from billboards and buses under the headline, “Are You Man Enough … to be a Nurse?” The poster, which has been distributed to middle and high schools throughout Oregon, is part of a recruitment campaign by the Oregon Center for Nursing, a nonprofit organization dedicated to solving the nursing shortage.The “Man Enough” campaign touched a national nerve when it was unveiled last fall, said Deborah Burton, Ph.D., RN, executive director of the Oregon Center for Nursing in Portland. She recently has sold the rights to the poster to two corporations, one in Louisiana and one in Southern California, that plan to use it to recruit men into nursing in those areas.Next Page |
