[Ron1974]

I am a new nursing student, a male, age 48. I am doing a paper on the stereotypical views of men in nursing, and after doing a lot of reading on this excellent website about that issue, I believe I have a pretty good handle on the views that other nurses have of men in this profession.

What I have not found much information on so far is how do doctors view male nurses in the working enviroment? Are they treated on an equal basis with the female nurses, or is there a clash of personalities that goes along with the stratifcation of skills? Or, is there a bias towards a male/male relationship. What about male nurses and female doctors, how well does that relationship mesh, speaking as a working relationship, not personal?

It would be great if some of the men that work closely with doctors, such as OR or ER positions let me know their experiences, or even better yet if some doctors themselves would let me know their feelings.

Thanks for everyone's input.

[Aaron C.]

I would say on a general basis male nurses are treated much better than their female counterparts but I will let everyone else speak on their own experiences.

[tensilon]

Heyas,
I agree with the moderator. In general the docs tend to give the males quite a bit more respect than they do the female nurses. It makes life as a nurse easier for the male nurse and it appears to be somewhat frustrating to the female nurses (and rightfully so.) Most of the historical male/female issues still present themselves in the working relationship. The problem for the female nurse also becomes more apparent when dealing with some docs of eastern and middle eastern ethnicity. Often some of these fellows, of course not all of them, but a larger percentage of them have a hard time taking suggestion from women nurses including some females that may be very very good at what they do. This is what I've seen over many years in many hospitals, is just my opinion although many female nurses I have talked with agree, and is certainly not the case with all docs either. I am a male BTW.

[1mg.epi]

I agree with shortbut on the most part, but I have seen the neoandrathol cardiovascular surgeon who feels the need to show dominance. I thought one day. A surgeon was so pathetic acting, I was sure he was going to start marking this territory. But on the most part, men are treated better. Sad to say so.

[Cammer]

I will tentatively agree with the above answers, however, I will add to this by saying that it is not a hard and fast rule that men are treated with more respect by physicians. If a physician is going to treat someone differently based on their gender then they will probably treat their same gender with more respect than their opposite gender.

In other words, some female physicians have a problem respecting men in nursing, just as some male physicians have a problem respecting women in nursing. However, in my experience, the majority of physicians make no gender distinction. I feel that this is only an issue and is only noticed because of the extreme minority of men in civilian nursing. I would hypothesize that if there were a balanced gender ratio in nursing we would not even think to ask this question.

What do ya'll think about that?:39:

Edit - - wow, this is an old thread.

[kwnurse]

I concur with that opinion.
There certainly are more men than women in nursing & men in general are different in there ways of thinking & there ways of nursing than women. Most male docs (although we see more women docs daily) unless they feel threatened or intimidated by a male nurse will speak more openly to another male. I also feel female nurses (the majority)tend to be more nurturing to male nurses making work alot easier.

[NavyJim58]

speaking for myself only I have had no problems with doc's in my nursing career. Especially in the ER. Even the biggest jerks have at most ignored me but never given me a hard time. I believe most doc's will respect your skills whether male or female but especially the latin or middle eastern doc's will treat men differently than women. Personally and I can't prove this but I believe a lot of male doc's see male nurses differently from female nurses because they are more comfortable with us......opposite for female doc's.....they are more comfortable with female nurses.......just my opinion:39: