[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Male Nurses (Page 1 of 7)
Posted: 6/14/2011 2:16:02 PM EDT
| Are there any here? If so do you like your job and how is the pay? |
| I know many nurses, some love it, some hate it. Go to school for it, you will figure out quickly if it is for you or not. I tried a RN program years ago when I left active duty, quit with an A average, just wasn't for me but my aunt is an ER nurse and loves it. A fellow reservist at my unit is a male RN and loves it, another is a Biomedical Technician and talks that up quite a bit as well. |
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Been a nurse for 16 years or so. Been a male for all my life.
Great career, lots of paths to take, many career options. The $ depends on the path you take, advanced degree = more $ I have worked with some fantastic co-workers and docs, worked with some that were not so great. Been there, done that, got the training certificate. Now I work in a secured environment and would never go back to the hospital setting. YMMV |
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Yes I am and wife is an RN in a world famous ICU.
16 years Sucks Always one crazy bitch that gets all the hens out for you. Nurses are always wrong and doctors and management are not. There are too many nurses no matter what you hear due to the easy student loan BS. Nursing egg heads work way too hard inventing our profession and forgetting or never learning the practice. 
Ever wonder why there are not many nurses past their mid 40s? |
| As far as I know, getting your masters and becoming a nurse practitioner will earn you more money. You are essentially doing the job of a doctor. I'm not yet a nurse, but I hope to be one day (though I'm not a guy). I know of a few other girls who are in school right now for that, and working in hospitals already within their program. They all love it. The only things they really find as negatives are long work hours and the occasional pain-in-the-ass patient. I don't imagine it would be too different for a male nurse aside from the stereotypes, but who cares? |
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Been a nurse > 15 years. I do ICU.
How do I like my job? It used to be a lot better. We are often understaffed. If anything goes wrong, hospitals and docs will throw a dozen nurses into the fire if they think it will wash their hands. Some of the memos we get are positively inane and you're expected to tow the company line even when it's retarded. Most recent point is our "no restraints" for ventilators policy. People on ventilators have big breathing tubes sticking out of their mouths. They are almost always agitated and confused and have a dozen other things going on. Even if they're not confused or agitated at all (rare), if you fall asleep and the tube happens to move a bit, each and every one of us has a reflex that will cause us to grab the tube out of our mouth and pull it out. Pulling it out with damaged the throat, sometimes permanently. Sometimes we won't get another tube back in it time and you will become brain dead. But hey, you got your "no restraint" percentage up a little bit so the patient dying isn't a big deal, right? How is the pay? With OT I make 100K without too much trouble. If I was agency (not employed by a single hospital, but employed by a nursing agency that sends you to a dozen different places) or if I was a traveling nurse (take assignments all over the country, usually for a few months each) I would make more. I personally know nurses who have made 150K. but they work all the time and don't have much of a life. New graduates don't make as much as experienced nurses do, obviously. Being male, you'll be asked to do more physical works than the women. I'm a big guy so I especially get asked when it's a whale we need to move around. Also, you work with a lot of women. A LOT of women. If you're the type to fuck the women you work with this, this is a blessing and a curse. Your boss and your boss's boss will most likely be women. Working in a female-oriented environment is......different. Logic doesn't always prevail. Don't whine or fight it, but adapt to it as best as you can. Being a male, you'll also automatically get more respect. Two nurse walk in a room, one is named Susie and the other David. David is smarter and a better nurse or at least that's what doctors, patients, and most nurses will automatically assume. Do not confuse getting "more respect" with "a lot of respect" because while people respect nurses in general, many do not respect them when they are actually in contact with them. Would I recommend nursing? The old answer was always yes. There was a huge nursing shortage and you can become a nurse with an associate's degree (although bachelor is preferred). Now due to the economy, older nurses have come out of retirement and fewer nurses are retiring. With the increase in socialized medicine, nursing is not the sure thing it used to be. Is nursing still a better career than most? Yes, probably. But it's not the "oh shit quit your job and go to nursing school right fucking now" thing it used to be. |
FWIW, the median here for ultrasound tech is the same as rn. I'm an RRT and work with a ton of nurses. Most RNs will tell you they love their job but their demeanor at work illustrates otherwise. ICU/CCU nurses may be the exception. The male nurses are few and far between, most are either on their second career or working on something else on the side. Then again, the same is true for my profession, I'm prepping for MCAT and LSAT 
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| My wife's small company employs around a dozen RN's of which 2 are male. They both seem to enjoy the work and are among the most respected by both patients and co-workers. One of them once commented that being a man in a profession dominated by women has its own set of challenges, which is why he left hospital and moved into home healthcare. I'm sure his sentiments are the same as many women in male dominated professions. RN's get compensated pretty well for the work they do, and both of these guys do tons of on-call that many of the women choose not to, increasing their take-home pay significantly. |
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God willing I will be in December....
Its been a decent ride so far. I have had tons of cat thrown at me to date. School sux most of the time. It is 10x more work than I expected but I am holding my own. Too many women run shit, female politics and power tripping sux to no end. Would I do it all over again......meh.....maybe.....
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| I've been a nurse for 14 years. Two years as an LPN and twelve years as an RN, and was a nurse tech for two years before I graduated nursing school. My advice is to become a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) and work in a hospital or nursing home first. If you lack compassion or have a weak stomach, then nursing is not for you. Don't do it just for the pay check because it will not be worth the stress and bullshit that you have to put up with. I don't know what the statistics are now, but when I graduated the first time, it was observed that 40% of new nurses left nursing within the first five years of practicing. That said I highly recommend nursing as a profession. Nursing takes good care of us as we take care of others. I love it, but if I had it to do over again I may have done things differently, but who wouldn't? |
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lots of seasoned nurses here with opinions that mirror my own. i graduated may '10 with a BSN and had an ICU job before graduation. most of my class wasnt so lucky. several people went up to 6 months before getting a job. most of my class has changed hospitals/units at least once. more and more hospitals are setting up "residency programs" that are supposed to be for new grads to have a continuing education while also working. some residency programs are amazing where they actually teach you what you need to know. many more are actually an excuse to pay you less and waste your time (like the hospital i work at- starting @ $19.50 with night and weekend shift diff) there is no standard for residency programs, no way to know if theyre going to be good without talking to people already there. yes you do get more respect as a male nurse. I was trained on CRRT (long term dialysis) within 6 months of being out of school. our hospital doesnt do CRRT like most others do. ours are pretty much reserved for septic (very fucking sick) people that are highly unstable. our CRRT machines were also recalled several years ago, but due to lack of funds (thanks economy) we just got new ones last week. the old one was a fucking nightmare to run (Baxter Aquarius for anyone else that has had these). None of the new grad females and very few of the females in general have been ok'd by our intensivist to run these machines. The earlier statement about one bitch getting after you is true as hell. My now ex gf and I from college got jobs in the same place, same unit, same shift (not on purpose, just happened that way). we recently ended on reasonably good terms but this one woman decided to go to HR with a bunch of rumors that she concocted about everyone fucking each other in the unit and me and my charge nurse getting into a fight off hospital grounds. so i get called in to my female managers office to deal with all of these allegations and so did everyone else. so now we have a tense work environment where we have to watch our asses constantly due to one woman. also having female bosses sucks. they play favorites, manipulate people, ect typical female shit. anyone that says they have a "couple annoying pts" is full of shit. also the guy at the hospital with no restraint policy, i feel for you. it seems like in my area (not a very high class one) everyone is a smoker (harder to get off a vent) and a complete alcoholic that goes thru DT's. or they are just pieces of shit that bite scratch kick scream spit and generally make your life hell. lots of urban utes and not so utes that love to shit themselves so that white boy gets to clean them up. im fucking serious..... all that said i actually do love what im doing. seeing someone who should have died walk back thru the doors and thank you with tears in their eyes is an amazing feeling. just know that at some point you will have to put up with all of the above. ive just been lucky getting to deal with all of it while also going thru a very hard breakup. god i cant wait to leave this city when my contract is up... and damn it felt good to vent about this |
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Quoted: I've been a nurse for 14 years. Two years as an LPN and twelve years as an RN, and was a nurse tech for two years before I graduated nursing school. My advice is to become a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) and work in a hospital or nursing home first. If you lack compassion or have a weak stomach, then nursing is not for you. Don't do it just for the pay check because it will not be worth the stress and bullshit that you have to put up with. I don't know what the statistics are now, but when I graduated the first time, it was observed that 40% of new nurses left nursing within the first five years of practicing. That said I highly recommend nursing as a profession. Nursing takes good care of us as we take care of others. I love it, but if I had it to do over again I may have done things differently, but who wouldn't? In almost all careers that see that kind of drop out rate. Its usually the result of women quitting because they get married and want to start popping out babies. Usually when a guy chooses a career track he stays on it until he dies or retires or just can't bloody take it anymore. It would be much more revealing if these stats broke things down between women and men. You'd probably see that men usually never leave nursing and what have you. |
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I'll graduate with a BSN in just under a year. I hopefully have an ICU job lined up... God willing!
You really REALLY need to do the homework in your area to see what programs are accredited (NLN or CCNE plus state BON plus regional academic commission) and if hospitals will hire from them. The average job search for a new grad here is approaching 1 year. There are almost no jobs for new grads except nursing home jobs (and people fight over those jobs). The few hospital jobs there are for new grads all say BSN ONLY. Associates degree programs around here are closing. There is a GLUT of new nurses, a GLUT of nursing schools, and a GLUT of people who want to take out huge student loans to be a jobless new grad. DO NOT GO TO A FOR-PROFIT NURSING SCHOOL. WORK AT A HOSPITAL DURING NURSING SCHOOL. DO NOT BECOME A NURSE FOR THE MONEY. POOP IS YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND. If you can get in to a Magnet Hospital for your first jobs, it is a better guarantee of a quality residency. |
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I've been an RN for 1.5 years. I graduated with my BSN in Dec. '09. Nursing is a second career for me. I graduated from college in '94 with a history degree and worked in banking/finance. I'd thought about being a nurse since I'd graduated college and couldn't find a job, then I got into the bank thing and eventually became my bank's compliance officer. I loved it, but being "that guy" who'd say "hey, this is illegal" got old after a while, so I went back to school part-time while working and did my prereqs. After those were done, I quit my job, my wife paid our bills and I did the nursing curriculum full-time in '08 & '09.
I wouldn't do it again. But that may be unique to my circumstances. Before I graduated, I had a job lined up on the oncology floor where I'd done my "leadership" clinical, but like another poster said above, many of my classmates were still jobless 6 months after graduation. Oh, and of the 8 guys out of 46 students, only 1 was/is gay that we knew of. Nursing school wasn't super hard, but it was incredibly annoying at times. Again, like someone said above, nursing professors/academics spend far too much time on "care plans" and other theory bullshit. I honestly think it's academics feeling insecure about their profession being seen as not as scholarly as something like physics or whatever. Studying for the NCLEX and worrying about whether I'd pass was something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Thank God I only got 75 questions and was out of there in just over an hour. Some of my classmates got all 265 questions over several hours - and failed. About second semester of my program, I began to think I'd made a mistake. Unlike most of my classmates, I didn't want an ER or ICU slot and I just really wasn't excited about anything in particular. I cringed when I heard my 21 y/o classmates say they were gonna do nurse practitioner or nurse anesthetist programs right out of school. Yeah, sure. Anyway, I pushed through it since I didn't have a choice. I did enjoy mental health class and clinical so I began to think of that as a possibility. My first job out of school completely sucked. I worked day shift and I think this might've contributed to the amount of suck. I'd originally been hired to work nights PRN (as needed) and on my first day the supervisor put up a sign-up sheet for a day shift position. I should've got a clue that something was amiss when my name was the only one there after a week. Days were a pain - doctors all over putting in new orders, patients going for surgeries/tests, family members everywhere.... My classmates who started on nights had a more conducive learning environment. If I wouldn't have gotten a transfer to our psych unit after 6 months, I wouldn't be a nurse today. It was that bad. The money is a lot less than most people think. Sure, there are people making serious money - but they're not new grads. And like what's been said above, there's TONS of older, more experienced nurses who've come back into the profession with the shitty economy. I made $55K last year, but over $12K of that was overtime that isn't available to me now. I don't hate my job now, but there are many things that would make it better. As others have said, and like in any field right now, we're incredibly understaffed. I have hardly any time for patients, which isn't a good thing when your patients want to kill themselves or someone else because they're depressed/crazy/antisocial/whatever. In my area, there's few places to work, so nurses can't write their own ticket like they can elsewhere. In fact, job security is pretty terrible actually. That may change if the economy ever turns around, but I'm not holding my breath. As a guy, yes, there's often more respect given to you by others. I haven't had any problems working with all the women. Sure, there's some bitches here and there, but most of the time we're all so busy we don't talk much. Oh, and we're far too busy for any relationship stuff and I wouldn't be into that anyway since my wife takes care of that for me fine. Many times guys will be asked to lift more so than women. It's great every once in a while when you feel like you really make a difference in a patient's life, but unfortunately, I have little time to spend with patients and spend most of my shift barely staying afloat. Sadly, I don't see that changing. I miss the days of working M-F and hate how much time I spend away from my wife (and soon-to-be baby). As soon as I have 2 years experience, I'm gonna start looking for something else where I don't have to work nights/weekends and don't dread the thought of going in for my shift. Cliff's Notes*: don't do it. *Clifton Hillegass, the inventor of Cliff's Notes, was the speaker at my graduation from the Univ. of Nebraska in May '94. |
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Gaylord Focker? is that you? Remember, we may get to chose what size bore to start your IV with.  Not if I stick him on the way there  You guys are usually too busy trying to start ET tubes nasally and putting IV's on the antereor aspect of the hand on non critical pts to start IVs the right way in the right place (the cephalic region of the arm). jk, we love our local medics (except for Stan, fuck you Stan)
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My cousin was a trauma nurse for a few years in DE, but being a college football player he was gigantic and expected to help move every patient over 250lbs.
He moved to NM to be a flight paramedic and loves it; his wife is an OR nurse at the local hospital. Kharn |
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Gaylord Focker? is that you? Remember, we may get to chose what size bore to start your IV with. Not if I stick him on the way there And remember, Gaylord your the ones with the nutsack, and when I start kicking, screaming, pissing, and pooping, its gonna happen in your direction. I hope your wearing your cup and your tampoons when you approach me with your needles. |
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Male Respiratory Therapist here.
Nursing > RT for anything other then wiping asses. Much better opportunities, career ladder, and education upgrades. That said, being stuck in one place all night would suck. Being an RT meant meeting all the cute new innocent nurses and finding out what color panties they had on. |
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Gaylord Focker? is that you? Remember, we may get to chose what size bore to start your IV with. Not if I stick him on the way there You guys are usually too busy trying to start ET tubes nasally and putting IV's on the antereor aspect of the hand on non critical pts to start IVs the right way in the right place (the cephalic region of the arm). jk, we love our local medics (except for Stan, fuck you Stan)meh, if i'm already at the head putting a tube in I might as well sink an EJ  i hate hand veins, i'll use em if I have to or for a secondary site, but I hate using them for primaries. when I was in school I had a patient that was a mason. after all those years of sun and bricks it was like starting a line on somebody wearing a catcher's mitt.
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