Sentimental Women Need Not Apply Summary

Historically the role of the nurse has been as a patient advocate. Nurses’ have advanced from being seen as low cost labor to an autonomous practioner. Prior to Florence Nightingale the nurse was a member of a religious order or under the direction of the military. Florence Nightingale established the first nursing schools and was responsible for their own practice. In the early 1900’s nursing education was taken over by hospitals and the licensing of nurses began. In the 1990’s nurse practioners, (under the license of a physician), began prescribing

Nursing care was unscientific and consisted of assisting patients with usual body functions; and was typically administered by women of a religious order or by women who by nature of their lifestyle frequented hospitals. Hospital care was for the poor and destitute; since home based medical care was better than risking additional infections in the dirty, crowded, and disease-ridden hospitals. During the typhus epidemic of 1852, hospital staff and patients suffered the greatest morbidity and mortality. (Ranade , 199817-19)

In the early 1900’s nursing education was primarily received at hospitals. Graduates mostly worked as private duty nurses, tending to wounds, bathing and administering medications. Others worked in hospitals where autonomy and leadership were considered insubordinate. During WWII nurses were once again at the bedside of soldiers and responsible for treatment decisions for the first time. This lead to once again, the need for highly trained nurses. The Cadet Nurse Corps program was initiated in 1943 where over 100,000 nurses received formal education and training (Travel Nurses Now, 2013). Nurses however remained in short supply post WWII across the United States. One response to the shortage, was the development of two year Associates Degree programs at community colleges. The ADN programs were cheaper, faster, thus making nursing a career possibility to a broader more diverse population of students (Creasia, Friberg 2011)

When people think about nurses, many ideas come to mind. They think of the hideous old starched, white uniforms, a doctor’s handmaiden, the sexy or naughty nurse, or a torturer. The media and society have manipulated the identity and role of nurses. None of these ideas truly portray nurses and what they do. Nurses are with the patients more than the doctors. People do not realize how little they will encounter the doctor in the hospital until they are actually in the hospital. People quickly realize how important nurses are. Because nurses interact with their patients constantly, nurses are the ones who know the patients best.

Trained schools for students who wanted to pursue a career in nursing came about in the 1800s when Florence Nightingale advocated the idea.  The only students that were accepted into these programs where white students, blacks were not allowed any education during this time.  Blacks were not given equal rights as the white people, and were denied the right to have an education.

“Males make up about 5% of all RNs working in the United States today” (Poliafico). Nursing is a profession in the health care field that concentrates on the nurturing care of individuals. The United States currently lacks testosterone (the male hormone) in the nursing field. The subject is something many people have thought about at least once in their lives. Some may argue nursing is a career meant for a woman, while others may argue it is a non-gender specified career option. Either way, the world has come to accept the lack of men in nursing. The nursing profession should be for both men and women, but society puts a stereotype on the ‘average nurse’ preventing men from being accepted into this career.

The thought of a nurse with zero medical training sounds terrifying. The nursing profession has been around since the beginning of time, although it has drastically evolved over the years and nursing practice right from the beginning has shaped today’s nursing with history, culture, and language. Nursing history and the current nursing scope has changed significantly alongside with expectations and standards of the role. Evaluating and comparing the evolving nursing standards from 1900s to today, one must understand the history of nursing first. This essay will explore the timeline of history and today’s nursing practice, medical supplies then and now, and how the role itself has evolved. Exploring the timeline of nursing and comparing the

Nursing is a predominantly female ruled field. Up until modern time, male nurses were practically unheard of and frowned upon. Even presently there is a stigma that comes with being a man who is a nurse. This paper was written with the intention of bringing attention to the minority that males are in the field of nursing and show that while career fields are becoming more gender neutral, there are still lasting stereotypes and prejudices.

Nursing is a profession based around compassion and caring for patient populations in a variety of settings. In a post Florence Nightingale nursing world, a nurse’s job is deemed “feminine” with care provided by a “lady.” Although society has changed dramatically, masculine stereotypes and the core focus of nursing is almost unaltered. Male nurses total 9.6% of the workforce, making nursing one of the top ten female dominated careers in America (United States Census Board, 2013). According to O’Lynn (2013), a proponent and researcher for men in nursing, this trend is similar to most developed countries citing statistics from Australia, Canada, Iran, Israel, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Similar problems, research, and outcomes regarding male nursing exist in all countries stemming from a common cultural background. As one third of the nursing workforce faces retirement within the next 10 years, the importance of increasing a well-supplied, trained, and equal workforce becomes a priority. This report focuses on the gender-diversity issues the nursing profession places on males inside the profession. Through the exploration of nursing history, it will then delve into the most problematic issues men face in nursing before discussing the role of nursing leadership in changing this landscape.

The nursing profession acquired prestige and legitimacy through Florence Nightingale’s reforms in the late 1800s (Mackintosh, 1997.) Nightingale’s reforms however also helped establish nursing as a woman’s occupation as she proclaimed “nurturance, gentleness, empathy compassion, tenderness and unselfishness to be essentially feminine and essentially nurse-like (Mackintosh, 1997). Other factors affected the decline of men participating in nursing but

Years ago, nursing was considered to be a female field. Many males who tried to pursue nursing as a career have been suffering from different stereotypes which mean that men who are nurses have to cope with stigmatizing labels like homosexuality (Kouta & Kaite, 2011). I believe that gender shouldn’t be a consideration when it comes to education. It is important that many nursing schools make the appropriate adjustments in their admission process and educational practices (Hodges, Rowsey, Gray, Kneipp, Giscombe, Foster, Kowlowitz, 2017). However, now men are excluded within nursing. For example, some nursing texts and articles refer to nurses as female, the majority of the nursing faculties are female nurses and almost all the textbooks are written by women.

When nursing grew into a profession in the late 19th century, few men were found among the ranks of these new nurses (Alliance, 2016). This was hardly surprising, for at the time, nursing was one of the only professions open to women, whereas men had countless better-paying and more respected career options. Florence Nightingale played a big part in making men not part of the nursing workforce. This is because she believed that the supervision and organization of nursing care shouldn’t be in the hands of men. Also, she said that men were not skilled to be in nursing. There were a few schools for men who could join nursing school in North America in the early 20th century. Most hospital schools of nursing imposed inconsistent rules about men

Women have traditionally been the natural caretakers of families and children. The home was primarily the “center of health care” but, in 1751 as the first hospital opened, society naturally expected that women would become dominant in the nursing career since they were expected to be caretakers. With women being primary in this career, nurses often times worked with no pay and received very little respect other than being hand maidens. Since 1998 hospitals have seen an increasing deficit of registered nurses (RNs): “By 2025 the nursing shortage is projected to reach 500,000 RNs” (Nursing Economics, 144). Not only are the facilities suffering from the shortage but so are the employees. With a decrease in RNs in the healthcare field also

Over the ages men have always dominated the workforce since it was their humane trait to provide for their families. It wasn’t until Florence Nightingale revolutionized the field of nursing by affirming the natural feminine qualities of care, nurture and gentle. The U.S. is experiencing a slow but steady increase of men within the nursing profession (Evans, 1997); however, integrating masculine and feminine roles still poses a big problem. Male nurses consist 9.6% of the nursing population, precipitating gender inequity (MacWilliams, Schmidt, & Bleich, 2013; U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). Unfortunately male nurses have become victims of discriminatory stereotypes which deter the recruitment of males into the profession (Meyers, 2003; O’Lynn, 2004; Rajacich, Kane, Williston, & Cameron, 2013). Barriers of equality are impeded by the historical origin of modern nursing and to achieve integration in a feminine dominated field remodeling nursing to include equality for both genders. Selecting this particular nursing issue was a very dear topic to me since I constitute the gender minority within my nursing class. Prior to researching this topic I had evaluated my reason to become a nurse and found that I too struggled to deal with society’s role acceptance as a male nurse. Nursing was not my primary career choice however after evaluating my career options while factoring marriage I arrived at nursing. It was not easy telling my friends and family of my plan to become nurse, knowing

In the later years of the nineteenth century, hospitals primarily managed nursing education in the form of training schools. Though described as schools, there was little formal instruction, and the students served mostly as a cheap labor force (Nutting, 1926; Reverby, 1987). Mary Adelaide Nutting recognized the need for better educational preparation for nurses in order to help advance the nursing profession and began implementing changes to the training school model when she became the superintendent of nurses at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Training School. In this role, Nutting set out to enhance the training program to provide better educational preparation for the students. She argued that the current structure served only the hospital’s needs, and she emphasized that nursing was the only profession without true educational preparation for its pupils (Nutting, 1926). Nutting