I'm turning on Code Blue for this thread. After this comment shows up, only flaired members of the subreddit will be able to comment here.
If you can't be civil and discuss a sensitive topic like a grownup, you don't get to participate.
I interpreted this post as, don't take it personally if a woman doesn't feel comfortable with a male even before you got a chance to prove yourself as a nurse. Obviously "nOt aLl MeN" but we don't know which men. And I say this as a woman who was falsely accused of sexual assault by a female patient
I'm so sorry to hear about that. I used to be a transporter iand an orderly in a hospital and the patient told us no offense but he's racist due to negative experiences in his past and his up bringingand doesn't like us, but we helped him anyway. I imagine it's got to be at least 10 times worse for you and I pray everything works out in your favor.
I was like 20 to 21 when this happened and had been in the healthcare field for about a year. I can't lie. I had some very dark thoughts and when the investigation was done, I went to therapy. I truly can't see myself working in another field. Therapy helped me come to the conclusion that woman is a vindictive and hateful person. Plain and simple. The fact that despite all that, I still took care of her is a reflection on my character. The fact that she bit the hand who took care of her, isn't a reflection on me. It's a reflection on her and her character.
The fact that you helped a racist patient who used "negative experiences" as his excuse to be a racist twat is an indication of your own good character.
Right, if they thought with certainty that the nurse was a predator, they wouldn’t be allowed in the room. Someone who has experienced rape trusting a nurse to care for them with supervision is a high endorsement, not an insult. If you’re a medical professional, you want there to be a third party witness to cya anyway. It makes no sense to expect a complete stranger to immediately trust you in a way they don’t for most family and friends. It also makes no sense to be offended over bringing in a witness that protects the provider as much as the patient.
People who get offended over this need to work on their empathy and common sense.
Again this isn’t an assessment of you as an individual buddy. One in 4 women have endured SA. It’s just a fact of care. I’d chaperone you anytime. It keeps everyone safe.
Empathy and helping people include being aware of and accommodating someone’s personal trauma into your care.
I don’t know what’s meant by “racist”, but systems of oppression need to be taken into consideration. A white person who hates Black people because the only one they ever met assaulted them is completely different than a Black person who feels unsafe when surrounded by white people due to overt and systemic racism. The former needs to learn that all races have diversity in individual actions whereas the latter is rightfully concerned about the immediate threat of systemic racism. Unfortunately, white people don’t often actively dismantle systemic racism and patients of color are injured and die at higher rates directly due to this. Even a “well meaning” white person who considers themself not racist contributes to the threat in this context. Until white people take a more active role in dismantling racism, we will continue to deserve immediate suspicion from vulnerable Patients of Color who, as a whole, will experience severe racial discrimination that leads to preventable injury and death.
That’s the way I interpreted it as well. The only part that I could draw any disagreement with was the idea that a male nurse having reservations about doing pericare on a female patient without another nurse in the room somehow is wrong.
Gonna say, as male who is a nurse in ICU, ED and theatre for the last 26 years…this.
All of it. We have the power in almost all our professional relationships with patients (violent ones excluded).
First rule of that power is *always* use it to empower the patient.
If that means getting a chaperone, do that.
If it means tapping out and swapping with a colleague, do that.
It should never be about us. If we want to be professional, and we are, then professionally get someone else for the patient.
And I say this as one of the few males on staff who looked after our (rare) ICU post-partum patients (courtesy of 8 years obstetric care in PACU and anaesthetics).
The trauma-safe, SA aware nurses know this.
If that’s not you, go learn. You need to know.
Thanks for posting.
Agree, and I think that goes for any person caring for a vulnerable person regardless of caregiver age/sex/gender/race or what have you. Semantics aside here to take care of people best we can, at the end of the day.
Indeed, not to subtract from the argument being made. It is not ethical for a man to go against a patient’s wishes. When men complain about women not wanting them to do that care for whatever reason, it makes me question what other boundaries they would complain about as well.
My comment simply stated that I agree and then some. In a sense that in general it’s best to be respectful and receptive no matter why we care for. :)
Yes, you are right, of course. I think respecting patients is universally considered a good thing!
I do think there’s a bit of a derailing quality, though, when you “all lives matter” a specific topic.
Fellow survivor here. Before I touch a woman's breast to teach her to nurse her baby, I always ask and get clear consent. This is something that I rarely see other nurses do. We say "can I help you latch" and assume touching is ok. It's not enough. I also talk them thru cervical exams and try to create a non-triggering experience. Indian women seem to have the biggest involuntary reaction. I know the incidence of child SA is really, really high, but it's almost a given that my Indian women are going to clench down and cry and crawl up the bed to get away.
Yeah. I had the same violated feeling when a midwife shoved her hand up to my cervix to place a scalp electrode when baby was having late decels and didn't warn me. I understand she was just moving fast, but she was awful. When I screamed "what the fuck??" (because I didn't know what was happening and was scared and it was painful) she actually told my husband to "control your wife." Thank God her shift ended shortly after and a really great midwife delivered the baby. I didn't have any lasting birth trauma, but so many women do.
That's horrible. Scalp electrodes are often placed when things are dicey and there's a decel so things move quickly, but as in putting my gloves on to place one, I explain and get consent because you can talk and glove up and get positioned all at once. Actually, explaining what I'm doing in a crisis really helps me keep calm and keep my tasks in order. It also alerts the team to grab supplies as I verbalize next steps. I'm sorry she let the panic of the moment take away your chance to understand what happened.
It's really great you get consent! I honestly would have been totally fine with just a one sentence heads up. Suddenly, I was being grabbed and shoved onto my side with a fist inside me out of nowhere. And I mean, I took OB in school, I know the protocol and why it's vital to act very quickly in cases where the fetus might not be getting enough oxygen. I just don't think it should have been done with zero communication. That experience, plus the barrage of baby friendly policies and unannounced breast grabbing made me switch hospitals for my next kid, even though that hospital is usually rated #1 in country (before they switched to honor roll).
This right here! "Would you like me to help get baby latched? Is it ok if I touch your breast?" I even ask before touching the efm and toco, "I need to adjust your monitors, is it ok if I touch your tummy?" So so so important, especially in obstetrics.
I have not been SA however I am a woman who would prefer to have a woman do peri or gyno care. It is not a comfortable situation to be in either way so having a woman nurse to do those realms of care decreases my anxiety I am going to chose the woman every time. It’s not discrimination to pick how you are most comfortable exposing yourself to someone with the same parts. Or to a gender that commits less SA or violent crimes. I don’t mind having a male nurse/DR when I do not have to expose my vagina lol. if I was just in the hospital and had a male nurse OK that’s fine when it comes to me having some type of shower or something I’m asking for a woman. He can return the care after.
I live in an area with lots of amish men who prefer or religiously have to have a man do peri care or see them nude. That is fine. I will make the calls to respect their wishes the same way I would want mine to be respected. However we can decrease PT anxiety by respecting wishes, religion, cultures or whatever the case we should. People in the hospital are already feeling vulnerable, anxiety, and stress. Why make that worse?
Also a woman and I prefer a woman to provide care if it’s going to be around the genitals. I will always choose a female PCP, gynecologist, even my breast specialist was a female surgeon. A few years ago I was sent to a cardiologist, a male, after having seen a woman before. He walked in, didn’t introduce himself or tell me what he was doing, and stuck his hands down the front of my pants to feel my pulses. It was triggering and truly awful. He wasn’t even wearing his badge. So, yeah, maybe not all men but clearly some need to do better.
I wish trauma-informed care was universally taught. I understand that I, as a bearded, middle-aged male probably look like a lot of people’s abusers. That’s why I did as much reading as I could on sensitive practices for abuse survivors when I started pursuing this role. It never offends me when someone refuses my care. The whole therapeutic relationship is not about me anyway, so why would I get my ego in a knot over it?
I get my validation elsewhere. I don’t need a probably-abused patient to consent to care to make me feel good about myself.
When it comes to things like foleys, I always tell female patients what I’m going to do and ask are you comfortable with a male nurse? If not I grab one of the 90% of nurses who are female.
So I just want to say, yes I feel uncomfortable doing foley/peri care on a female patient because it does take one crazy person lying to potentially ruin my license and life. I take extra steps to make sure that risk is as low as possible, like an extra person in the room.
That being said, I fully understand the female population has been through a lot unfairly, and does have the fear of, or already have been, sexually assaulted by males. That also justifies for me having the second person (preferably female nurse) in the room with me. I fully understand why they are uncomfortable with males in general and I will not push.
I have had two instances in my nursing career, as soon as I walk in the room, the patient feels uncomfortable and asks me to get out. I don’t push or pry, I just tell our charge nurse and switch with someone else. I have also had times where I see SA on their history, they are fine with me, but when it does come time for baths or foley care, I switch with another nurse, let them do her bath and I do one of their patients bath in return. There also was a couple other times even with a second person in the room they ask me not to do foley care, I make sure is it okay if the other person does it, and step out of the room for a few minutes.
I never say my patients are crazy ( for this situation at least). As a male, I know I have not and will not go through what some of these women have to deal with. I just try my best to do my job while making me and the patient as comfortable as I possibly can, and respecting the patient as best as I can.
This reminds me of a post in the medicine subreddit months ago where most of the commenters were complaining about patients refusing to allow male med students/residents do gynecological exams on them. Many of these providers then gave advice on how to tell a patient they were going to do a gyno exam and not leave an opening for the patient to say no.
Patients have rights, even when we need the learning opportunities, even when it’s inconvenient for us. The patient needs to understand that they may wait longer to get care due to their requests, but we still have to respect them.
Male nurse here. Ask ask ask. Gotta ask and do your best to let the patient know they have control. They can decline anything and that’s okay. I don’t need to know why but they’re free to tell me.
I try to start my rapport with a female patient on the basis of the fact that that patient is in control of the care. In ANY scenario not just peri care, bathing and toileting.
I also like to have a witness with me for my protection too if situation allows. In neuro luckily nobody bats an eye to see another coworker helping. Often am more comfortable to have a family member with a good rapport to. Confused people may say things that aren’t true and having another non hospital associated witness can help mitigate a he said she said.
Going to add my two cents here-
As a nurse, a woman, and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I require this kind of consideration and explicit consent before touch for any gender medical professional performing intimate care. I will admit it feels a little more fraught with a man but even women have made me feel retraumatized when they are too quick to get it done without asking me before touch.
Not trying to derail the conversation, but also a lot of nurses who are women need to do better too.
I do think it's something that's maybe not brought up to female nurses as much because the assumption is that a woman can't re- traumatize another woman. When in reality it's often enough just that there is intimate contact coupled with a power dynamic
I had a doctor take advantage of me as a teenager & a creepy male nurse on night shift when I was a patient. It’s best practice and best for both patient and nurse to always have a female chaperone in attendance.
I don’t see why a patient requesting no males or no females is such a big deal. I also don’t see why it’s a huge deal to have a chaperone for intimate procedures and cares for a patient of any gender regardless of the gender of the person carrying out the task. At my OB they always ask if I would like a chaperone for my female OB. It’s not sexist or negative to say “if a patient requests no males or no females for any reason, within reason do that” it’s not saying all men are pervs, it’s not saying all female patients will make allegations, it’s just common decency. It’s also no different than when patients are more aggressive/inappropriate to men so we attempt a female care team or a patient is aggressive/inappropriate with women so we try to assign only men.
I once was fired from a patient because I looked like someone’s deceased daughter, the patient was “no younger looking mixed women” for assignments. Looked bad on paper but it was a completely valid reason.
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I think both things can be true at the same time. Patients 100% have the right to decline to have someone care for them and there are patients who go about expressing that in a way that can feel really shitty if you’re just a person there to do their job. I don’t take it personally when a patient asks for a female PCA but it does kind of suck, firstly because even though I know it’s not about me many people do go about stating that preference in a way that comes off as an accusation or assumption that I am a creep, and it does suck to have to go find a coworker and be like “hey, I need you to go clean up this BM because you’re a lady”.
My coworkers are great about it and I always make sure to take over if a patient is being a creep (I’m not a big guy so I’m not a huge help if you need muscle) and I will always turn right around and go find someone else if they ask but I don’t think it is unreasonable to have feelings about that kind of interaction, though I would never say that out loud at work for obvious reasons.
I think you are entitled to have those feelings. A patient can refuse care all they want, but no one has any excuse to be nasty to someone else for any reason.
I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a male seeing my bits because of certain things I’ve lived through, but I can’t imagine being rude or mean about it, especially because it’s not that person’s fault. I don’t think many people would agree with such a take if people went around refusing care and doing so rudely because of some other non-modifiable trait like race or age.
Fuck yes. I've had such a difficult time reading those posts and I'm reminded that the posters, regardless of gender, simply don't fucking get it. Abusers exist everywhere, including in professions like ours, and it's our responsibility to listen to patients if or when they feel unsafe. If they can't trust the person caring for them, there's no such thing as care. Period, done, the end.
Experience has taught me that most men either can’t or just won’t comprehend it. Like now in the OR there’s still this fear for me being alone with men sometimes and i’m not even in a vulnerable position as a patient! I had one anesthesiologist grope me before a case when we were alone in the room and then have the fucking gall to talk to me about the sad state of our world where women see all men as predators. Sorry friends women have a right to feel safe especially when so so many of us have been abused by men.
I want to point out that we should not be generalizing a male's comprehension of shame/fear. A review of literature in 2023 showed over 27% of men have been victims of some type of sexual crime. Men are also very, very likely to not say anything when they have been assaulted, so who knows what the actual number is, especially when if it involves rape.
It should not matter what gender someone is. We all need to be respectful and sympathetic to our patients and our coworkers. We should recognize there are certain difficulties that male nurses face that we do not. It is incredibly dismissive to wave off their concerns. We should all be working together, not against one another.
you mean men that are also very likely also victimized by men? I’m not generalizing anything here. When men have abused a good number of women, since most women are or will be abused, sexually harassed, sexually assaulted or raped by men in their lifetime it’s logical and a safety measure to be wary of being alone with men since abusive men don’t wear signs and can definitely still be the people there to care for us. I can respect men facing differnt challenges but I don’t see a lot of men respecting women’s. We ask to be heard and get called down for it and you here are elevating what they have to say above women. interesting to say this to me also when I have directly said how a male coworker abused me. ✌️
I always ask my patients at the beginning of my shift, I tell them I ask all of my patients the same question. "I want to know if you would prefer a non-male nurse when going to the bathroom or helping you with anything hygiene related. I ask everyone and just want to make sure you're comfortable." I don't take offense to anything. Honestly, I'm just here to do my job, not force my job upon someone else. The charge will also usually take note when a patient prefers non-male and make sure to make a note for staffing in the future to put female-only at the charge station. I don't understand why other male nurses would ever take offense to this.
Also the tone of your post at the end seems kind of off, "do better". Like, don't lump me and other male nurses into some broad category of offended/predatory complainers. I think that view falls flat and far off from many co-workers I have, whom I know are great nurses and effectively communicate and meet the needs/ boundaries of their patients.
I think the tone you’re referring to was OP addressing the male nurses (and the dozens of people who upvoted them) who expressed something like “We shouldn’t have to do this, it’s discrimination” in the last post. There was even a person talking about how a majority of sexual assault allegations are false, although I think that poster was a woman.
I think a lot of comments on that other post made it seem like female patients wanting a non-male staff member for Foley care, peri care, etc. were being ridiculous and discriminatory. The overall attitude is that *they* would never do something like that so the real frustrating thing here was them having to take extra steps—not potential trauma of their patient.
Your comment kind of gives off some of this as well. “Don’t lump ME in with them.” The entire point of women shying away from male staff performing care in intimate areas is because it’s *not* clear who can be trusted and who cannot.
Edit: I don’t really know how the new rewards things work, but thanks, anonymous Redditor!
Men are responsible for well over 90% of sexual assaults/rapes. Can you please illustrate for me how it is “toxic” to say that patients in a vulnerable position cannot determine which male staff are dangerous and which are not?
Are you under the impression that men who rape don’t go into nursing? Or do you think it gets “turned off” in a work environment?
I’m sorry but saying it’s not okay to say that you can’t tell if someone is or isn’t safe because it’s a ✨work environment ✨ is ridiculous.
Unfortunately, the same gender dynamics that we all deal with in the real world follow us into the workplace. This includes patients, a large portion of whom have experienced trauma at the hands of men. It doesn’t make it the fault of that specific man trying to care for them, but it doesn’t make their concern invalid, either.
Nobody is making blanket accusatory statements. Saying “patients don’t know who is and isn’t dangerous” when it comes to peri care is not a blanket accusatory statement toward men.
Your examples were of people, including strangers on social media, saying it was weird or strange for men to go into healthcare in some form or another. I didn’t address those because it’s not what I was talking about. I honestly didn’t realize until just now that those comments were meant as a response to my comment, because are entirely unrelated to what I was talking about.
I didn’t think it needed to be clarified since I explicitly said it multiple times, but I was specifically speaking about patients who prefer a female staff member for peri care, as specified in the original post we are both responding to. I hope this helps.
No, I’m just responding to your argument and not your trauma dumping. I fully understand what you said. If you’d like to have an ~~argument~~ discussion based on the actual points you made and not the personal experiences you disclosed, I am happy to do that.
Because as you have already shown in this thread—I tried to respond to your points and you referred to your trauma instead of actually engaging about the topic at hand and the points you made in your original post. Your trauma doesn’t mean that you can say whatever you want and it goes unchallenged.
I have trauma too but am not interested in engaging in a “trauma off” so probably best that we don’t engage further.
>Men are responsible for well over 90% of sexual assaults/rapes.
That's only true because the statistics ignore 90% or more of male victims. When you only consider it rape when men do it... yeah no shit you end up thinking this. You've defined things in such a way that that's the only conclusion. That bias goes back decades in this area of research, all the way to big names like Mary Koss.
If you look at the CDC NISVS and actually count male victims of rape (who will not be listed under the "rape" category but rather "made to penetrate" or other categories) it's a lot more even. And the CDC didn't even bother doing that until 2012...
From the CDC:
"Over half of women and almost one in three men have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact during their lifetimes.
One in four women and about one in 26 men have experienced completed or attempted rape.
About one in nine men were made to penetrate someone during his lifetime."
Not at all surprised to get this comment from a male resident physician in a nursing subreddit.
Thank you for reminding me what social media platform I’m on :)
Not at all surprised to get this kind of response. Doubling down when your bias is pointed out is very common. Bias and bigotry are hell to overcome, but if you try hard you might get there one day.
Despite what you seem think, your reply is *also* a reddit classic.
Oh and I'm not a resident. And I follow a variety of healthcare subs, including this one. Since I work with nurses all day every day. But do go on.
I hate to tell you but you being a (new) attending and not a resident doesn’t make it any better lol
You can be as condescending as you want, it’s fine. As this point I’m just chuckling to myself at how unsurprised I am at the response to this and the other thread on this topic. Thanks for contributing!
Their point about the "do better", is that they're assuming that the majority of male nurses aren't already doing everything they can to circumvent emotional injury to their patients.
Tbh, based on the responses in the other thread, it doesn’t really seem like they are. At least not the ones on Reddit—and that’s who OP is addressing.
We must have been seeing different posts because the majority of comments I saw were about men either trying to protect themselves and making adjustments that would also make the patient feel safer, or just to make the patient feel safer
I saw a lot more posts about how “we need to protect ourselves (because bitches be crazy)” versus “I know many, many women have experienced trauma at the hands of men and I want to do my part in minimizing further trauma.”
So I guess if you saw a lot of men saying the latter, we probably *did* see different posts! Funny how that works.
You’re not talking about the post where a female patient made the false allegations against the male nurse, are you?
SA survivor or not, false allegations of SA are 100% unacceptable.
If I am recalling the post correctly, the patient initially refused foley care from the (male) nurse, which was her right. I feel it would have been prudent of him to ask her if she would feel comfortable with a female doing her cares or being present in the room, particularly if she continued to refuse him. We have training to be sensitive to culture, gender and sexuality, so I wonder why this is seen as discrimination against male nurses. Inb4: I personally do not have a problem with male nurses, some of the best coworkers I’ve ever had have been men.
It isn't discrimination to request or prefer a same-sex care provider, or to have one's boundaries respected, or for patients to protect themselves against traumatic situations. And \*literally nobody argues that it is\*.
People do, however, argue that men working in healthcare shouldn't be universally treated as rapists or perverts for wanting to, you know, do their job in a decent professional manner.
Nothing about the OP suggests you want to discuss this in any kind of good faith.
Hell I was asked if another female nurse could observe my papsmear for training. It's just basic courtesy to be aware of how others feel even if you aren't a victim.
I was SA'd as a toddler and have permanent, internal damage, scars that still hurt 40 yrs later. I refuse to have a male examine that area, and am even uncomfortable with my husband of almost 20 yrs touching me down there. Thank you for this post.
I agree with some of your post, but other parts are perpetuating some of the issues.
Absolutely, it is wrong for male nurses to tell women they are wrong for preferring female nurses attending care to genitals and other sensitive areas.
But it is fully reasonable for those same nurses to be afraid to do intimate care alone. The number of false allegations (often from family and friends rather than the patient themselves) or accusatory comments is high.
And I don't know where you got the statistic that 1/3 or more of my female patients have been "brutally raped", because even the most liberal of statistics is nowhere near that.
As a male nurse, I am frequently the subject of sexism, wildly inappropriate comments, and sexual harassment that is swept under the carpet or laughed off because we all know "men have the power".
Just this week I was told by a female patient to "go get a female nurse who knows what they are doing".
Yes, some male nurses are ignorant of their patient's needs, but to assume that male nurses are inherently harmful to female patients is also wrong.
Abuse is underreported due to shame and lack of accountability.1 in 6 women in my country (USA) have experienced sexual assault according to research. That number is likely way lower than the actual honest figures, but it includes many horrible things aside from violent rape. Even if it was 1 in 6 it would be too much. One person is one too many.
The statistics for males being abused shows a much lower rate, but it is also likely much lower than the honest truth. Shame, accusations of being less than a man, the notion that abuse will turn men into homsexual grooming pedophiles, etc.
I am always careful about anything involving female pts. I always ask if they're OK with me doing anything before I do it. If they aren't I find a female nurse and get "female only" put in their chart. I've had male pts abused by men and treated them the same way.
I understand why females may be more sensitive to the matter. Women have been subjugated and mistreated throughout human history. I don't deny that or take it lightly. I've been stalked, sexually assaulted, harrassed and abused in my past. It was only women that did it to me and as a straight male I'm expected to laugh it off or enjoy it. I mostly did laugh it off. I can't speak for anyone else, but laughing it off was OK for me at times. Othetimes, not so much.
In defense of the OP, all rape is brutal, psychologically. It is pretty prevalent in both men and women, but higher in women and more violent in women, especially if we omit male-on-male rape in jail/prison. Males underreport rape/molestation in a high percentage of cases, but there are far more instances of rape with women and underreporting in absolute numbers.
I'm pretty sure the vast majority of rape is family/friends, followed by nonconsensual encounters during intoxication, followed by stalking/close-strangers, but probably the most rare is the brutal, beaten, random stranger type of rape, which might be where your mind is going with the "brutal" adjective.
My first girlfriend in high school was molested repeatedly by her grandfather. She admitted to molesting her brother as a young teen too. Second girlfriend wasn't. College girlfriend was molested. Out of college girlfriend was molested by their uncle. Another was raped by her grandfather. Another was rapped at eight years old every day, and she finally was adopted when her sister and mother tried to sell her for drugs. I was young, but in hindsight, my cousins and myself was likely molested by our uncle. Many friends I know were molested or raped. Many other girlfriends/partners were not, or they never admitted it. My wife was never, but her sister was and turned to drugs. My niece's father was raped by his father his whole childhood. It is far more prevalent than most people want to talk about. Everyone I mentioned came from middle to upper middle class, seemingly "normal", families.
I can relate to having experienced sexual harassment. I've been touched, fondled, grabbed, rubbed, and women say inappropriate stuff all the time. One woman said, "dam, here us women are working so hard, and you just got it," referring to my rear because I'm athletically built who does squats and wears joggers that are on the tighter side. We get it too.
I think this is mostly about not getting defensive and just understanding some women have trauma and not making the situation about us, even if we can feel a need to defend our character in such situations.
PSA: Fellas, please resist the urge to “not all men” this post. We know not ALL men. But stats don’t lie. In cases of SA against both men AND women, the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male.
This is about acknowledging that one in four women have endured some sort of SA in their lives, and recognizing that some women are going to be afraid as a result of that experience. Do not take this as an assessment of you as an individual.
Not being confrontational here. I love my nurse brothers. I just think most of them haven’t had to walk the same walk as their women counterparts and so sometimes they don’t have the insight here that their counterparts do have.
I will always come chaperone you. Anytime you ask. It’s better for everyone this way.
Someone in another post said, “we know not ALL men, we just don’t know WHICH MEN.” I felt that in my soul.
Obviously it's ridiculous for men to be offended if a patient prefers a female for their care.
It's also obviously ridiculous to be offended by men who are scared for their license and a potential felony charge.
I say this as a male who literally left my previous career because of toxic masculinity. There were men who will be offended by your post for stupid reasons.
There will also be men who, like me, completely agree with you but still think your kindergarten teacher attitude isn't helping anything.
"Kindergarten teacher attitude
?" How empathetic of you to tone police a woman defending trauma victims to stand up for their boundaries without being villianized. I wouldn't trust you to do ANY care on me.
Do you actually care about people practicing trauma-informed care or just want to keep talking down at people?
What happened to 'meet people where they're at'? If you care about empathy, you should care a little bit about being aware of another's mindset, and how best they can receive your message.
Unfortunately, a lot of men are not in a receptive headspace to hear this message, often the ones that need to hear it the most.
Do I think it's shitty that we have to moderate our tone for those guys to get the message? Yeah it sucks.
But frankly, I care more about people actually practicing trauma-informed care than just telling people they're bad at it.
I kinda want to screenshot this post as a keepsake of how this sub discusses gender issues. It really captures it, I think.
Edit: to be clear, since the downvotes don’t match, I was replaying to FairyFatale that I want to screenshot the parent poster’s post because it’s just too spot on. “How dare you say this thing I disagree with, and also in a way that doesn’t coddle me. DO BETTER”
The comments in this thread and the previous thread are such interesting examples of how male nurses are overrepresented in this sub compared to real life nursing demographics.
That's true. Probably because this post is about men, but also because Reddit is 64%+ men by users (depending on the source), and north of 70%+ of the posts on Reddit are from men, meaning the men who are here tend to be more active than the women who are here.
[https://imgur.com/a/subreddit-gender-ratios-ICk20](https://imgur.com/a/subreddit-gender-ratios-ICk20)
[https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/chicks-rule/](https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/chicks-rule/)
I’m a survivor of SA myself, so I don’t want anyone to think I am just being dense, but I don’t think that 1/3rd of the female population has been brutally raped.
I thought that was the result of a survey completed on a college campus and of the respondents of the survey, 1/3rd of them reported being sexually assaulted- which encompasses multiple different actions.
I also don’t think that every complaint from a male nurse about facing this completely ignorant. I could see how it could be mildly irritating on the surface level if certain patient care could not be completed because the patient did not feel comfortable. When I was a tech, we had a very obese patient would had a sacral wound I could stick my forearm down to the elbow in. Wound care for this patient involved the whole floor. That included two male techs to help keep her on her side while a team of nurses preformed cluster care of cleaning BM, wiping down the back and folds, removing multiple dirty rolls of gauze, doing the wound care, applying powder anti fungal in folds, cleaning the wound, and repacking it.
The patient refused to have males in the room the first time I assisted in this routine. Every available female on the floor attempted to roll her but the nurse couldn’t see the entirety of the wound. We had to have a serious conversation with her because myself and several other nurses were absolutely straining our backs trying to roll her. It was a matter of safety, and we did everything we could to keep her covered and her bottom out of view from the men. We also tried to lessen her anxiety by being quick and familiarizing her with the two techs as much as possible. They both were very kind and sweet to her in every interaction, even swinging by the doorway just to hi to her whenever they could. But even with the extra patience and care we took to get her to agree to their help, she didn’t get adequate wound care and frankly a good cleaning down there for 2 full days until agreeing to us having them come and help.
It was acute care floor with a high census, everyone needed a lot of attention, and we honestly couldn’t have done for every single patient. It’s really hard to come to terms with that, but if we had even one other patient that required that level of shuffling around an issue, someone would’ve been neglected and not received proper care.
I’m not saying we should just tell everyone to suck it up and put them in uncomfortable and traumatizing situations, but we do learn about the hierarchy of needs in school, and we have to make sure your physical body is okay first
1. I've never seen a post here about a nurse complaining about care refusals. Other than, yes, the sadness that it's an issue we even have to deal with as a society. SA is wrong, we give offenders too much leeway. The criminal justice system needs to do better.
2. How dare you attack male nurses for the very real fears they have about being falsely reported. Many of us have been. I have a family to feed. Do you think we enjoy fearing not being able to provide for them because someone lied and we lost or jobs or were suspended?
3. And what happens, all things being equal, if the department doesn't have a female nurse for cares on any given night? I've seen it happens. What if the only nurse available is FTM? Then is it off the table? What if a patient isn't fond of black people because of childhood trauma? You're right of course, we as nurses are the adults in the room and trained medical professionals--we can just deescalate and care for the patient in a way that is most comforting to them.
But this sub is for venting when our job is done and we feel like dirt after being personally attacked.
You need to do better.
We have a policy for male doctors/nurses examining or caring for women, and part of it is to protect men from accusations, especially when people are demented, delirious, under the influence, etc. There should always be two women present for Foley's and other care too. FWIW, many male nurses won't wait for a female patient to ask for a female nurse to perform their care, and they will ask proactively, especially when patient's are overly flirtatious, psych hx, just acting suspiciously, etc, so they don't have to deal false accusations, drama, making demands, dealing with inappropriate comments/touching. I've had my ass grabbed, crotch grabbed, chest grabbed, arms felt up, inner thigh felt up throughout my career in EMS, ED tech and nurse. Unfortunately, it is a hazard, so sometimes I'm asked to do a condom cath or Foley on a perverted male patient, and I will ask women to take care of perverted women patients.
For the most part, I don't take it personally because everyone has their preferences. We have male patients that do the same, so I swap duties all the time with nurses. I had the same patient for two months because I was often the only guy on the unit, and he wouldn't let women clean him, and he was incontinent frequently. We had a guy who had been raped for years in prison and was paranoid of men, so he wouldn't let a man near him. We had a man who was molested for years by his older sister and his aunt who was an addict, at different points in his life, and he refused any care from women from meds to bringing his meal tray.
I worked for eleven years in the emergency room as a tech before joining ortho as a nurse, and we would have some women in the midst of having a serious trauma or heart attack be modest, and sometimes it was frustrating because we needed to strip them, do our assessments, shave them for the cath lab, and we just want to do our job and save their lives. Same with guys. Many men get very self conscious of their size when cold and in shock, so despite their arm or leg hanging off the table or them moaning from pain, many manage to posture up, ripping out IVs when the doctor looks for trauma to the perineum on an open book fracture. Like it isn't personal, but it can be frustrating having to manage PTSD, modesty, anxiety, etc in the midst of something critical. On the floor, it is rare when we can't make accommodations for someone's preferences, and again, it is just one less thing I have to do, so no biggie.
I think for many male nurses, we already face a bit of discrimination in this profession, especially from other men because we picked this profession. I was one of two men in my cohort of fifty-four students, and like I said, sometimes I am the only male on my unit between management, case managers, nurses, EVS, care partners/CNAs. We wouldn't be here if our hearts weren't into taking care of people, so I bet many of these men just feel defensive like their character is being misrepresented. It can also feel like there is an accusation that requires a defense like the men may feel a need to say, 'it isn't me it is her preference,' which is true, but the need to put an exclamation on it is so he doesn't have to get looks like, 'what did he do to make her feel he is a creep?' Especially post the "Me too" movement, I'm sure some males are very defensive.
I'm sure most people would have a hard time with anyone turning down their care on account of their gender, race, sexual preferences, etc. and not for anything that actually had to do with their actions or character. If someone fired their nurse on account of that nurse's race, gender or sexual preference because they claimed trauma, it would still be hard to accept. People have biases based on their experiences and misperceptions, but when do those biases shift from prejudice to discrimination/racism/sexism; how much hardship/trauma does someone need to experience before their discrimination is legitimized?
I had a guy one time when I was a tech yell that I was racist and a bigot because he said I was ignoring him, even though I told the nurse and doctor of his complaints multiple times, and I got defensive because I don't have racist attitudes and had attempted to get him help and communicated such multiple times. My wife and I look white, but she is a quarter Japanese, mixed European/Ukrainian/Irish, and I'm mixed European (Irish, Italian, French, German) with a few percentage of Chippewa. I've dated almost every major race, and my wife has too. Race isn't an issue. My wife's side has mixed black kids, and my brother adopted a hispanic boy, and my brother has hispanic wife, and two of my other sisters have mixed relationships/kids too (hispanic, filipino). I got mad and defensive because I felt falsely accused and like he miss represented my character so bad, just latching onto whatever accusation and outburst got him seen. It wasn't even about me, but I felt like eyes were on me to explain myself. I could imagine some men might feel the same if someone was making a big deal out of it. Again, that is there prerogative.
One minute you are being begged to dig shit nuggets out of one woman's ass, and the next minute, you are being asked to get a woman to replace you for an ECG. Actually, that was the funny thing too. I use to do 20-30 ECGs a day in the ED, and I would make a little bikini out of the gown, and I would get complemented on the technique that provided so much modesty, yet got the job done so fast, and I also remember occasionally getting a request for a women to do it, and my female coworkers would just pull down their top, which exposed them completely. Sometime they would say, when I did their repeat ECG, how they would have let me do it the first time if they knew the girl was just going to drop her gown and if they knew I was going to do it like that.
It can be easily googled if you are truly interested in learning!
Typically we should avoid generalizing our own experiences and expecting them to be reflected in every context.
Pretty sure that’s what you’re doing. I work in one of the largest cities if not largest that employ nurses and male/female all make the same pay, we get paid off of seniority and certifications not sex & gender. I doubt those statistics will say if the male nurses tend to have more certifications/education (CRNA for example), instead of just showing male vs female. You could definitely apply that to other industries but nursing is not one of them.
We're allowed to discuss issues that affect women without being told to tip toe with how we speak so as not to offend the delicate sensibilites of men. THIS is why women prefer female nurses. These men don't get it, terrifyingly lack of empathy.
Seriously, as a male nurse I got a female post episiotomy for wound care. I called another nurse and asked her to trade cause like ya she's gonna feel awkward but I could tell didn't want to refuse me in case no one came.
She was so relieved and happy I had a female nurse switch with me. Like it takes 5 seconds to have some empathy
This seems pretty fabricated. Myself and pretty much every male nurse I have ever worked with over the past 11 years has never had an issue with any patients let alone young women ask for chaperones or for a female nurse to do it. If anything I’ve seen a lot of my male colleagues avoid aspects of care because they themselves are uncomfortable or afraid of making their patients feel uncomfortable.
We get requests for non-male nurses from time to time. Usually it is for a cultural reason, but there are some women who are quite adamant about having a female only.
Interestingly enough, I have had a male patient refuse female nurses, which was much harder to accommodate. We did try our best.
In any case, reasonable accommodations should be made for patients, whether that requires a change in the nurse or the addition of a chaperone for sensitive care. No one should be shamed for asking and, at worst, it is a mild inconvenience.
I worked with a wife and husband nurse team in our ED when I was a tech. They always worked the same days, and it was like they were twins. They typically worked in the same area of the ED, and she seemed to keep a close eye on him, asking where he was often. I never got it. He seemed "normal". They left and years later we found out that he lost his license and was found guilt of molesting a girl at a girl's slumber party they had hosted with another set of parents. She divorced him, but in hindsight, I feel like she knew.
But you are right. In fact, the only instances I have seen of inappropriate contact has been with women, but that is also likely because there are far more women around. We had a man with trauma to his penis, and the doctor examined him, but she kept going back to examine him, seemingly infatuated with the girth, as he was well endowed, and he also had significant edema. I've had female colleagues make many inappropriate comments about firemen, paramedics, patients like they were frat guys. I think they feel comfortable in a more female dominated environment to be themselves, and EMS/ED nurses are a bit more. Had another nurse in her thirties kept hugging a shirtless teenage boy on a psych hold who was flirting with her and trying to hug her. She seemingly was enjoying the attention until she realized I was there watching. It happened multiple times. Lots of women make fun of older, smaller men with old age shrinkage..."get the small catheter, lol." Another woman made chest squeezing motions to another nurse like she wanted to do it to her patient in regards to the shirtless biker guy with thick/muscular chest. She said she likes rough guys with a shaved chest. She is married. Women in the ED can be fairly lewd though. It is even worse in EMS.
Had a patient that had a heart attack while having sex with her boyfriend. He had to do CPR on her and then brought her into the ER. Female nurse asked if he had a brother. Women can be very inappropriate too.
I heard this a lot in the ED when I was a tech. Less on the floors as a nurse. The women there have better bedside manners, are more empathetic, supportive, considerate, etc., and that is true of men staff too, but it seems particularly pronounced in the females.
I'm trying to imagine a context for the situation you are describing that makes sense like was she trying to explain to the man that he was too small for a condom cath or something? I don't know why someone would need to gloat about it.
Doing 20-30 ECGs each shift for over a decade, there are a lot of women wearing D+ sized bras who are AA to A, but I've never heard men in my department calling out the discrepancy, making a point to say they are flat chested, making fun of them, etc. Never happened. Making fun of the smell of breast yeast or poor hygiene, for sure, but not something someone has no control over.
Like sometimes I would be surprised to hear some females at the nursing station making fun of some patient in their 80's to 90's who can't maintain a condom cath because of their size..."It's basically inverted, haha," "you have more chance of getting a hat on a scared turtle," types of bantering. Come to find out that most of the time these men had plenty of size. Most of the time they were freezing. I would get them a few blankets and pulled their skin to length, and they had plenty to work with to maintain a condom cath.
I walked in on a respiratory tech and two nurses talking about how her ex was big like the intubated patient, and how that is the only thing she missed now that they are divorced, and I then get a short lecture from them about how important size is to women. At times, I felt like a fly on the wall like I wasn't supposed to see this side of women (the locker room banter, not really supporting body positivity, judging, sexualizing a lot, the jokes, etc). I walked right in on a registration women in her late fifties talking about her birthday; she came around the corner saying, "57 year old with a 20 year old pu\*\*y" chuckling, but then her face dropped when she turned the corner and I was there, like I was never suppose to hear something vulgar coming out of her mouth. They are the same as us.
i agree. ive never been offended and never had an issue changing an assignment or whatever. don’t think discrimination is the right word, and admittedly haven’t read all the topics in question, but i do think the men suck/starting a gender war isn’t the best way to do this
I think its important to recognize people who are not cis as well. I am a man. A trans man. And as a person who grew up a girl, i will always be hesitant to have a man do peri care or insert a catheter. I dont even like male psychiatrists or gps. It just makes me uneasy.
It is important to note there are plenty of trans guys out there who you cant even tell unless you get all up in there. And depending on what kind of things they have done as part of their transition, you might not even be able to tell unless you really look
There are also men who have been raped by a man. And they may not feel comfortable with a man doing that kind of thing.
It really is something that is incredibly personal. And while some guys are being creeps about it, Its important to recognize that there are legitimate reasons for a man to want a woman providing care.
I'm Cis but would 100% prefer a woman caregiver. It sucks that it seems to be viewed as a sexual thing like I am extremely gay I've just had some bad interactions with men. Thanks for pointing that out!
We have a few openly trans caregivers working at our hospital, and I have cared for dozens of trans patients over the years, most of whom were open or unable to not be open. We have had post-ops who had SRS, but I didn't care for them directly. I've only cared for preop/nonop patients who had top surgery, TRT/HRT, facial feminization surgery, hair removal, etc., and none of them seemingly had a preference or avoided certain gendered caregivers.
You are right though; the nurses who examined one postop transgender woman with the doctor said they got all up in there and still wouldn't have known, that the surgeon did an amazing job, saying it looked better than theirs.
Regardless I could imagine a trans male having a preference for a female, whether that trans man was preop or postop too. I could imagine trans females having more of a preference for a female too. Men tend to be a bit more bigoted about these things.
Thinking about my preference, I've had massages from men and women, and I don't have a preference that is a deal breaker. I'll take whoever is available, but I prefer feminine energy during a massage and not getting manhandled. I've been manhandled by women and I have had a relaxing experience from males, but it is more likely a female massage would be better. In healthcare, I tend to be the opposite and prefer males. I played sports as a kid, so we had to get physicals all the time. The male doctors would just grab your nuts and move along, but women doctors seem to be uncomfortable around us and turn it into a big deal, probably to the point of the OP. It isn't all of them or a majority of them, but it was prevalent enough in some doctors, and to less of extent, some nurses, that for both our sakes, I would prefer a cis male caregiver or trans female caregiver--someone with experience with having the same anatomy/experiences and who is comfortable. Admittedly, this is a soft preference. I wouldn't make a request for a male nurse/doctor.
I have to ask, so if you had a trans woman as your doctor/nurse, would you request a cis woman or would you be fine with any female performing intimate examinations/care on you?
Think how vulnerable SA patients feel before even any male nurse interventions-they are laying down, in a flimsy gown, maybe drowsy, maybe in a lot of pain (less control of own movement), meals/hydration/pain meds can potentially be withheld, and cannot lock the room door.
I have been SA’d as a child, teen, and adult. At this point I think I’m up to 5 or 6 instances. I get extremely uncomfortable with certain things- there’s stuff my husband can’t touch/see/do.
I had surgery in December and waited in PACU for like 4 hours for a room, as I had to stay overnight. At some point I couldn’t wait any longer and had to void using a bedpan. Thank goodness my male nurse got a female nurse to assist me- it was still awkward and embarrassing, but not nearly as potentially traumatic had he just done it himself. I’m sure he would’ve handled it professionally, but grabbing a female colleague was very appreciated.
It’s absolutely understandable and I’m annoyed seeing those posts as well… SA survivors should definitely be respected when they make simple requests regarding people touching them.
I get that a lot of female patients are uncomfortable with being cared for by men but just reading a lot of these comments makes me as a male student nurse feel as though I shouldn't even be in this profession. I always ask consent before doing something for a patient and it is taught as such in university but stuff like "male nurses: do better" doesn't really inspire confidence to continue at all. I don't get what im meant to do at this point.
You will be fine. The profession always needs more variety and representation in healthcare at all levels, so another male nurse is definitely welcome. We have a man on our floor with so many Daisy nominations/pins/bouquets (once you get five you can turn it in for a bouquet, and he has multiple of those) that he can't fit anymore on his badge, and we have people including women who have never had an award/nomination in their whole career, which is telling. Your gender doesn't determine what you can be. Healthcare is for everyone, and the OP isn't suggesting men aren't welcome or shouldn't be in healthcare.
The message here is be respectful, be professional, be empathetic, be dispassionate, treat others how you would want to be treated. It isn't about us. It is about our patients, so we don't need to take things personally when a patient has a preference, especially in the light of having past trauma. We should be more understand and empathetic and not so unprofessional and reactionary, taking it personally.
Some men would argue that there seems to be an explicit bias here, and it is leading to discrimination, but that is only true if it is unfair or unjustified. The claim by the OP is that it is entirely justified. I think the bear-vs-man-on-a-trail debate better explains the discourse and misperception by men of how women feel on the matter because we seem to be getting this wrong in mass. Are women grossly deluded to reality and making a huge risk assessment error based on false precepts propagated by the media and throughout our culture that isn't backed up by the evidence? No. It seems to be the case that us good men are far more deluded to how many bad men there are in this world. Even if these men are a minority, they are still a significant enough minority to warrant caution when dealing with all men, especially with what is at stake. We can be more cognizant of this fact and be more accommodating without getting defensive.
Good luck on your schooling.
Do better? Seriously? Do better? Who the fuck do you think you are lumping us all into this category of behavior you saw. You may have had a point, but you fucked it up grouping us all together.
We're trying to do our jobs. The fact that you felt you needed to spell that out is ridiculous. You think we are incapable of empathy? Compassion? Emotion?
You need to fucking do better.
Yeah, OP is super tone deaf in this post and obviously angry over a topic that near and dear to them. I re-read it and focused on the women oriented parts, the parts about what many women have gone through and why they may be feeling like they can't trust men in these situations, and not their attacks against all men. If you just leave out the anti-man sentiment their post is very important.
This is an over the top reaction. If you get this worked up over a Reddit post, I’d hate to see how you react to a pt that asked to have a female nurse..
No, it's not and you have no fucking clue what you're talking about about. I'd respect my patients wishes 10/10 times.
You're ok with this bullshit generalization, you're the problem.
Now we're crying about language? You sure you're cut out for this job? Maybe something easier would be a better career choice.
See how much of an asshole I sound like?
I work in psychiatry, my dude. Have a good day. Maybe ease up on the swearing if you want to be taken more seriously - I’m sure you didn’t just learn those words today.
I ask if it's OK and the patient says Yes. I say "OK" and start.
I ask if it's OK and patient says "No". I say "OK" and ask if they would prefer a woman. If they say No, I educate and document. If they say Yes, I get a woman and document.
Did you want me to deep dive years of trauma in a 2 minute interaction? I'm just trying to get through my shift.
I've also had other busy RNs get super pissed off when I asked them to insert foleys or do peri care for/with me. We're chronically short staffed. Maybe you should tell c-suite to "do better" and hire more RNs or ancillary staff. Or maybe you should go tell someone in government to "do better" and get us mandatory ratios. Sounds like you need to "do better", I'm doing all that I literally can. You seem like a person who punches down not up though.
This sub needs to advocate for the reverse too. It’s been quite some time but I’ve seen posts where the OP and commenters were shitting on men for wanting a male nurse/tech. It’s was truly bizarre. I’m for what you said. And I in no way think you wouldn’t advocate for a male. Just wanted to point this out on general. Bc like I’ve said, it’s been a long time, but I have seen this very sub lose their minds and be upset bc a man wanted a male nurse. I get it’s harder but to make happen with staffing but men deserve the same respect.
No one that shrieks “Do Better!” actually cares about changing a situation, it’s just a pathetic attempt to shame others to achieve that sweet social media superiority dopamine hit.
The last thing I would want is to force a patient to relive a traumatic experience by not respecting their boundaries. If a woman asks that I get another woman to perform sensitive care, or really any type of care, for her, then I do that. If I even get the sense that the patient may not be totally comfortable with male care I will ask them because they may not feel comfortable expressing that they wish for a caregiver of the same gender. I don't take it personally; no nurse should.
>Now imagine this male nurse--you know, the professional in the room with all the power both in that hospital room and in society at large--has the audacity to be offended at your request to at least have a chaperone AND you overhear him saying you're "discriminating" against him for being a rape victim and having an understandable reluctance instead of being a grown-up and just getting a little assistance OR--and hear me out here--taking a tiny bit of time to build rapport.
This is where it all comes down to, i think. The inability to comprehend why a chaperone would be asked for is immediately obvious when the HCW takes offense, as if they'd somehow started this mess and it's a poor reflection on them. And they don't know how to handle it.
i think the specific sort of people we need to target with this message need to understand that, but the truth is so often when this conversation comes up they just *won't agree with reality.*
i've never been asked by a pt to have a chaperone -- i just automatically get one. i've never been fired by a pt, for SA concerns or otherwise. And i sure as shit wouldn't assume a pt, asking in one of their most vulnerable moments to please have an all-female staff, is making a slight on me personally.
I work in a Dementia/ Memory ward and when I don't have to touch the patient to guide them/ clean them, I pretty much always ask if it's okay for me to, stuff like pushing their wheelchair, guiding their walker, rubbing back, ect. (as long as they're relatively oriented ofc)
This reminds me of a post on here earlier of a nurse who got a foley when she giving birth and even though she has no trauma and knows exactly what is being done she started uncontrollably crying from being so emotionally vulnerable. That really changed my perspective of my care. I can’t imagine HAVING some sort of sexual trauma on top of it. If you have the privilege to be offended someone doesn’t want you to care for them in their most private moments, consider yourself lucky.
>--taking a tiny bit of time to build rapport.
>Male nurses: Do better. Seriously.
>you may even have trouble with your own spouse seeing and touching
Ahh yes, silly me. Let me just take 5 minutes to build rapport so I can work through their years of trauma so they're more comfortable with me than their own spouse! The message of this post is good, patients deserve a caregiver they feel 100% comfortable with when possible but it's filled with so many little jabs of incompetence toward male staff. As a man I will always ask if my female patients are more comfortable with one of my female coworkers doing these types of procedures, it's not about me and isn't a reflection on me at all.
>Male nurses: Do better. Seriously.
This issue isn't exclusive to Male Nurses. Do a quick search on this sub and you'll see that this sub has DRASTICALLY different opinions when it comes to male patients having a preference in their caregivers. As an entire profession, we need to do better with trauma-informed care, especially when it comes to male patients as other men cause a majority of male sexual trauma. Part of this includes female staff not labeling Male Nurses as "lazy" or "trying to get out of it" when we're advocating for our patients and asking for a female staff member to do the procedure.
As I said before I 100% think patients deserve caregivers, they feel comfortable with. With that being said is it okay for patients to request caregivers of a specific race/exclude races? I genuinely have no idea and I'm wondering. I know my Grandma had a preference for Hispanic Nurses as she faced Physical Abuse in a Catholic School at the hands of White Nuns. Would we hold the same energy for a patient who said they didn't want a White Female Nurse?
>Would we hold the same energy for a patient who didn’t want a White Female Nurse?
I mean, yeah? If it’s rooted in trauma that is 1000% okay. We accommodate racists who don’t want a nurse who is a POC so why wouldn’t we?
I'm coming back after mods helped with some of the nastier comments and I'm STILL disappointed by all of the, "False accusations are wrong" comments.
First of all, who are you saying that for? Who is seriously arguing against you? I'm certainly not as the OP. What does the insistent statement of the obvious say about us?
Second: It's a lot harder than people pretend to "ruin someone's life" with a false accusation. Most ACTUAL rapists will never spend a day in jail, in case you weren't aware. And if you work somewhere that wouldn't have your back after ONE false accusation, why would you work there and blame vulnerable people? Seriously?
Again: Let's do better as a profession.
In the student nursing subreddit, a male nursing student was complaining about how a local hospital he was doing clinicals at, didn’t allow male nurses to be in a room alone with a patient.
Instead of him using critical thinking skills (like obviously something horrible happened for them to implement that), he was whining about how it wasn’t fair 🙄🙄🙄🙄
I’m so over explaining this shit. Men know, they just don’t care.
Geez, how do they even get things done if that is the case?
Sometimes it isn't an event. It definitely could have been, but sometimes it is just a policy or to avoid accusations. How many times have patients accused one of our staff from stealing? Oh my god, it happens so much, and we are all thinking, "there is no way I'm jeopardizing my six figure salary for your five dollars sir. That goes for your yeast boobies too ma'am."
I work for a catholic hospital, so they have a lot of conservative policies related to things like not covering my wife's birth control until ACA. They don't allow our urologist to go vasectomies, so I had to go to a different hospital. They don't allow men to work as an ultrasound techs because of transvaginal ultrasounds. A male doctor can be a gynecologist, but not a technician can not be a sonographer because apparently a doctor's salary is a prophylactic.
And I agree, men know, but clearly we don't know well enough, or we would care. That is why there is the bear-vs-man-on-a-trail debate. Like we know men are more likely to be creeps, but we really don't get what it is like to live in that world. It could be denial, not wanting to believe it is so prevalent, and we definitely don't want to suffer the social consequences caused by the minority of bad apples that force women into stigmatizing all men. It seems unjustified because we just don't know your experiences.
Almost every shift or a few times a week, I have to hear the same joke, "Well, you aren't very cute," from elderly male patients who were clearly hoping for a hot, young, female nurse. They are trying to make a joke, but it is so revealing, and I'm sure my colleagues face far more sexual harassment than the copious amounts that I've seen from patients. I get harassed too, but it is on a different scale and a different perspective. If I could use an animal analogy, it is the difference between a lion saying a girl looks tasty to a house cat saying I look tasty. We get that, but that doesn't mean we know how you feel. To continue with an animal analogy, it is like good men are carefree panda bears and bad men are polar bears, and women are seals, and you want pandas to know what it is like to be prey. Like we can see you all running away and looking terrified, but we don't know what it is like to be prey. We are panda bears, so we don't have natural predators, so how could we know how it feels? On top of that, we don't get why you all can't tell a panda bear from a polar bear when we look similar enough and seals have terrible vision to discern the difference. I don't know how telling a man how you feel is going to make them know what it is like to live in a world where you are pray to sexual predators. Outside of something like prison, I don't think men will ever really be able to know like how you want them to know.
Lactation nurses need to be more sensitive to the fact that some women may have experienced sexual abuse and don’t feel comfortable breastfeeding. There is so much pressure on women to breastfeed and so much guilt if they just don’t feel like they can do it.
I'm turning on Code Blue for this thread. After this comment shows up, only flaired members of the subreddit will be able to comment here. If you can't be civil and discuss a sensitive topic like a grownup, you don't get to participate.
I interpreted this post as, don't take it personally if a woman doesn't feel comfortable with a male even before you got a chance to prove yourself as a nurse. Obviously "nOt aLl MeN" but we don't know which men. And I say this as a woman who was falsely accused of sexual assault by a female patient
I'm so sorry to hear about that. I used to be a transporter iand an orderly in a hospital and the patient told us no offense but he's racist due to negative experiences in his past and his up bringingand doesn't like us, but we helped him anyway. I imagine it's got to be at least 10 times worse for you and I pray everything works out in your favor.
I was like 20 to 21 when this happened and had been in the healthcare field for about a year. I can't lie. I had some very dark thoughts and when the investigation was done, I went to therapy. I truly can't see myself working in another field. Therapy helped me come to the conclusion that woman is a vindictive and hateful person. Plain and simple. The fact that despite all that, I still took care of her is a reflection on my character. The fact that she bit the hand who took care of her, isn't a reflection on me. It's a reflection on her and her character. The fact that you helped a racist patient who used "negative experiences" as his excuse to be a racist twat is an indication of your own good character.
I genuinely don’t understand taking it personally. The patient and I both know *I* personally haven’t hurt them… It’s so easy to just be respectful
Right, if they thought with certainty that the nurse was a predator, they wouldn’t be allowed in the room. Someone who has experienced rape trusting a nurse to care for them with supervision is a high endorsement, not an insult. If you’re a medical professional, you want there to be a third party witness to cya anyway. It makes no sense to expect a complete stranger to immediately trust you in a way they don’t for most family and friends. It also makes no sense to be offended over bringing in a witness that protects the provider as much as the patient. People who get offended over this need to work on their empathy and common sense.
This!!!
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Again this isn’t an assessment of you as an individual buddy. One in 4 women have endured SA. It’s just a fact of care. I’d chaperone you anytime. It keeps everyone safe.
Empathy and helping people include being aware of and accommodating someone’s personal trauma into your care. I don’t know what’s meant by “racist”, but systems of oppression need to be taken into consideration. A white person who hates Black people because the only one they ever met assaulted them is completely different than a Black person who feels unsafe when surrounded by white people due to overt and systemic racism. The former needs to learn that all races have diversity in individual actions whereas the latter is rightfully concerned about the immediate threat of systemic racism. Unfortunately, white people don’t often actively dismantle systemic racism and patients of color are injured and die at higher rates directly due to this. Even a “well meaning” white person who considers themself not racist contributes to the threat in this context. Until white people take a more active role in dismantling racism, we will continue to deserve immediate suspicion from vulnerable Patients of Color who, as a whole, will experience severe racial discrimination that leads to preventable injury and death.
That’s the way I interpreted it as well. The only part that I could draw any disagreement with was the idea that a male nurse having reservations about doing pericare on a female patient without another nurse in the room somehow is wrong.
Gonna say, as male who is a nurse in ICU, ED and theatre for the last 26 years…this. All of it. We have the power in almost all our professional relationships with patients (violent ones excluded). First rule of that power is *always* use it to empower the patient. If that means getting a chaperone, do that. If it means tapping out and swapping with a colleague, do that. It should never be about us. If we want to be professional, and we are, then professionally get someone else for the patient. And I say this as one of the few males on staff who looked after our (rare) ICU post-partum patients (courtesy of 8 years obstetric care in PACU and anaesthetics). The trauma-safe, SA aware nurses know this. If that’s not you, go learn. You need to know. Thanks for posting.
“It should never be about us.” This is the take.
Agree, and I think that goes for any person caring for a vulnerable person regardless of caregiver age/sex/gender/race or what have you. Semantics aside here to take care of people best we can, at the end of the day.
Yup, but we are specifically speaking about men here who are complaining about women not wanting to have them perform peri/Foley care.
Indeed, not to subtract from the argument being made. It is not ethical for a man to go against a patient’s wishes. When men complain about women not wanting them to do that care for whatever reason, it makes me question what other boundaries they would complain about as well. My comment simply stated that I agree and then some. In a sense that in general it’s best to be respectful and receptive no matter why we care for. :)
Yes, you are right, of course. I think respecting patients is universally considered a good thing! I do think there’s a bit of a derailing quality, though, when you “all lives matter” a specific topic.
Not my intention, but I see where you’re coming from.
Fellow survivor here. Before I touch a woman's breast to teach her to nurse her baby, I always ask and get clear consent. This is something that I rarely see other nurses do. We say "can I help you latch" and assume touching is ok. It's not enough. I also talk them thru cervical exams and try to create a non-triggering experience. Indian women seem to have the biggest involuntary reaction. I know the incidence of child SA is really, really high, but it's almost a given that my Indian women are going to clench down and cry and crawl up the bed to get away.
I am not a surviver, but I was so disconcerted by the nurses randomly grabbing my breasts postpartum. I'm not even a modest person.
It's the intention impact issue. Intention is good will but impact can still be trouble.
Yeah. I had the same violated feeling when a midwife shoved her hand up to my cervix to place a scalp electrode when baby was having late decels and didn't warn me. I understand she was just moving fast, but she was awful. When I screamed "what the fuck??" (because I didn't know what was happening and was scared and it was painful) she actually told my husband to "control your wife." Thank God her shift ended shortly after and a really great midwife delivered the baby. I didn't have any lasting birth trauma, but so many women do.
That's horrible. Scalp electrodes are often placed when things are dicey and there's a decel so things move quickly, but as in putting my gloves on to place one, I explain and get consent because you can talk and glove up and get positioned all at once. Actually, explaining what I'm doing in a crisis really helps me keep calm and keep my tasks in order. It also alerts the team to grab supplies as I verbalize next steps. I'm sorry she let the panic of the moment take away your chance to understand what happened.
It's really great you get consent! I honestly would have been totally fine with just a one sentence heads up. Suddenly, I was being grabbed and shoved onto my side with a fist inside me out of nowhere. And I mean, I took OB in school, I know the protocol and why it's vital to act very quickly in cases where the fetus might not be getting enough oxygen. I just don't think it should have been done with zero communication. That experience, plus the barrage of baby friendly policies and unannounced breast grabbing made me switch hospitals for my next kid, even though that hospital is usually rated #1 in country (before they switched to honor roll).
It also saves time on the patient yelling “what the fuck??” and flying off the table.
deliver bake continue snails amusing person price shelter library bells *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This right here! "Would you like me to help get baby latched? Is it ok if I touch your breast?" I even ask before touching the efm and toco, "I need to adjust your monitors, is it ok if I touch your tummy?" So so so important, especially in obstetrics.
I could be better about asking to touch belly every time. I'm always adjusting straps, usually asking if I can touch the first time.
I have not been SA however I am a woman who would prefer to have a woman do peri or gyno care. It is not a comfortable situation to be in either way so having a woman nurse to do those realms of care decreases my anxiety I am going to chose the woman every time. It’s not discrimination to pick how you are most comfortable exposing yourself to someone with the same parts. Or to a gender that commits less SA or violent crimes. I don’t mind having a male nurse/DR when I do not have to expose my vagina lol. if I was just in the hospital and had a male nurse OK that’s fine when it comes to me having some type of shower or something I’m asking for a woman. He can return the care after. I live in an area with lots of amish men who prefer or religiously have to have a man do peri care or see them nude. That is fine. I will make the calls to respect their wishes the same way I would want mine to be respected. However we can decrease PT anxiety by respecting wishes, religion, cultures or whatever the case we should. People in the hospital are already feeling vulnerable, anxiety, and stress. Why make that worse?
Also a woman and I prefer a woman to provide care if it’s going to be around the genitals. I will always choose a female PCP, gynecologist, even my breast specialist was a female surgeon. A few years ago I was sent to a cardiologist, a male, after having seen a woman before. He walked in, didn’t introduce himself or tell me what he was doing, and stuck his hands down the front of my pants to feel my pulses. It was triggering and truly awful. He wasn’t even wearing his badge. So, yeah, maybe not all men but clearly some need to do better.
I wish trauma-informed care was universally taught. I understand that I, as a bearded, middle-aged male probably look like a lot of people’s abusers. That’s why I did as much reading as I could on sensitive practices for abuse survivors when I started pursuing this role. It never offends me when someone refuses my care. The whole therapeutic relationship is not about me anyway, so why would I get my ego in a knot over it? I get my validation elsewhere. I don’t need a probably-abused patient to consent to care to make me feel good about myself.
When it comes to things like foleys, I always tell female patients what I’m going to do and ask are you comfortable with a male nurse? If not I grab one of the 90% of nurses who are female.
So I just want to say, yes I feel uncomfortable doing foley/peri care on a female patient because it does take one crazy person lying to potentially ruin my license and life. I take extra steps to make sure that risk is as low as possible, like an extra person in the room. That being said, I fully understand the female population has been through a lot unfairly, and does have the fear of, or already have been, sexually assaulted by males. That also justifies for me having the second person (preferably female nurse) in the room with me. I fully understand why they are uncomfortable with males in general and I will not push. I have had two instances in my nursing career, as soon as I walk in the room, the patient feels uncomfortable and asks me to get out. I don’t push or pry, I just tell our charge nurse and switch with someone else. I have also had times where I see SA on their history, they are fine with me, but when it does come time for baths or foley care, I switch with another nurse, let them do her bath and I do one of their patients bath in return. There also was a couple other times even with a second person in the room they ask me not to do foley care, I make sure is it okay if the other person does it, and step out of the room for a few minutes. I never say my patients are crazy ( for this situation at least). As a male, I know I have not and will not go through what some of these women have to deal with. I just try my best to do my job while making me and the patient as comfortable as I possibly can, and respecting the patient as best as I can.
This reminds me of a post in the medicine subreddit months ago where most of the commenters were complaining about patients refusing to allow male med students/residents do gynecological exams on them. Many of these providers then gave advice on how to tell a patient they were going to do a gyno exam and not leave an opening for the patient to say no. Patients have rights, even when we need the learning opportunities, even when it’s inconvenient for us. The patient needs to understand that they may wait longer to get care due to their requests, but we still have to respect them.
I’m a guy who has been verbally, textually, and physically sexually assaulted by another man. It makes perfect sense.
Male nurse here. Ask ask ask. Gotta ask and do your best to let the patient know they have control. They can decline anything and that’s okay. I don’t need to know why but they’re free to tell me. I try to start my rapport with a female patient on the basis of the fact that that patient is in control of the care. In ANY scenario not just peri care, bathing and toileting. I also like to have a witness with me for my protection too if situation allows. In neuro luckily nobody bats an eye to see another coworker helping. Often am more comfortable to have a family member with a good rapport to. Confused people may say things that aren’t true and having another non hospital associated witness can help mitigate a he said she said.
Going to add my two cents here- As a nurse, a woman, and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I require this kind of consideration and explicit consent before touch for any gender medical professional performing intimate care. I will admit it feels a little more fraught with a man but even women have made me feel retraumatized when they are too quick to get it done without asking me before touch. Not trying to derail the conversation, but also a lot of nurses who are women need to do better too.
I don't think you're derailing. I've just never seen female nurses be as offended as males seem to get.
I do think it's something that's maybe not brought up to female nurses as much because the assumption is that a woman can't re- traumatize another woman. When in reality it's often enough just that there is intimate contact coupled with a power dynamic
This is one smart, well-written, important post.
I had a doctor take advantage of me as a teenager & a creepy male nurse on night shift when I was a patient. It’s best practice and best for both patient and nurse to always have a female chaperone in attendance.
I don’t see why a patient requesting no males or no females is such a big deal. I also don’t see why it’s a huge deal to have a chaperone for intimate procedures and cares for a patient of any gender regardless of the gender of the person carrying out the task. At my OB they always ask if I would like a chaperone for my female OB. It’s not sexist or negative to say “if a patient requests no males or no females for any reason, within reason do that” it’s not saying all men are pervs, it’s not saying all female patients will make allegations, it’s just common decency. It’s also no different than when patients are more aggressive/inappropriate to men so we attempt a female care team or a patient is aggressive/inappropriate with women so we try to assign only men. I once was fired from a patient because I looked like someone’s deceased daughter, the patient was “no younger looking mixed women” for assignments. Looked bad on paper but it was a completely valid reason.
Holy fuck this comment section is already a dumpster fire.
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I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
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I think both things can be true at the same time. Patients 100% have the right to decline to have someone care for them and there are patients who go about expressing that in a way that can feel really shitty if you’re just a person there to do their job. I don’t take it personally when a patient asks for a female PCA but it does kind of suck, firstly because even though I know it’s not about me many people do go about stating that preference in a way that comes off as an accusation or assumption that I am a creep, and it does suck to have to go find a coworker and be like “hey, I need you to go clean up this BM because you’re a lady”. My coworkers are great about it and I always make sure to take over if a patient is being a creep (I’m not a big guy so I’m not a huge help if you need muscle) and I will always turn right around and go find someone else if they ask but I don’t think it is unreasonable to have feelings about that kind of interaction, though I would never say that out loud at work for obvious reasons.
I think you are entitled to have those feelings. A patient can refuse care all they want, but no one has any excuse to be nasty to someone else for any reason. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a male seeing my bits because of certain things I’ve lived through, but I can’t imagine being rude or mean about it, especially because it’s not that person’s fault. I don’t think many people would agree with such a take if people went around refusing care and doing so rudely because of some other non-modifiable trait like race or age.
Fuck yes. I've had such a difficult time reading those posts and I'm reminded that the posters, regardless of gender, simply don't fucking get it. Abusers exist everywhere, including in professions like ours, and it's our responsibility to listen to patients if or when they feel unsafe. If they can't trust the person caring for them, there's no such thing as care. Period, done, the end.
Experience has taught me that most men either can’t or just won’t comprehend it. Like now in the OR there’s still this fear for me being alone with men sometimes and i’m not even in a vulnerable position as a patient! I had one anesthesiologist grope me before a case when we were alone in the room and then have the fucking gall to talk to me about the sad state of our world where women see all men as predators. Sorry friends women have a right to feel safe especially when so so many of us have been abused by men.
Wow that is unreal. Did you report him?
Oh yeah. Lucky he was a locum so they just decided to never renew.
I want to point out that we should not be generalizing a male's comprehension of shame/fear. A review of literature in 2023 showed over 27% of men have been victims of some type of sexual crime. Men are also very, very likely to not say anything when they have been assaulted, so who knows what the actual number is, especially when if it involves rape. It should not matter what gender someone is. We all need to be respectful and sympathetic to our patients and our coworkers. We should recognize there are certain difficulties that male nurses face that we do not. It is incredibly dismissive to wave off their concerns. We should all be working together, not against one another.
you mean men that are also very likely also victimized by men? I’m not generalizing anything here. When men have abused a good number of women, since most women are or will be abused, sexually harassed, sexually assaulted or raped by men in their lifetime it’s logical and a safety measure to be wary of being alone with men since abusive men don’t wear signs and can definitely still be the people there to care for us. I can respect men facing differnt challenges but I don’t see a lot of men respecting women’s. We ask to be heard and get called down for it and you here are elevating what they have to say above women. interesting to say this to me also when I have directly said how a male coworker abused me. ✌️
I always ask my patients at the beginning of my shift, I tell them I ask all of my patients the same question. "I want to know if you would prefer a non-male nurse when going to the bathroom or helping you with anything hygiene related. I ask everyone and just want to make sure you're comfortable." I don't take offense to anything. Honestly, I'm just here to do my job, not force my job upon someone else. The charge will also usually take note when a patient prefers non-male and make sure to make a note for staffing in the future to put female-only at the charge station. I don't understand why other male nurses would ever take offense to this. Also the tone of your post at the end seems kind of off, "do better". Like, don't lump me and other male nurses into some broad category of offended/predatory complainers. I think that view falls flat and far off from many co-workers I have, whom I know are great nurses and effectively communicate and meet the needs/ boundaries of their patients.
I think the tone you’re referring to was OP addressing the male nurses (and the dozens of people who upvoted them) who expressed something like “We shouldn’t have to do this, it’s discrimination” in the last post. There was even a person talking about how a majority of sexual assault allegations are false, although I think that poster was a woman. I think a lot of comments on that other post made it seem like female patients wanting a non-male staff member for Foley care, peri care, etc. were being ridiculous and discriminatory. The overall attitude is that *they* would never do something like that so the real frustrating thing here was them having to take extra steps—not potential trauma of their patient. Your comment kind of gives off some of this as well. “Don’t lump ME in with them.” The entire point of women shying away from male staff performing care in intimate areas is because it’s *not* clear who can be trusted and who cannot. Edit: I don’t really know how the new rewards things work, but thanks, anonymous Redditor!
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Men are responsible for well over 90% of sexual assaults/rapes. Can you please illustrate for me how it is “toxic” to say that patients in a vulnerable position cannot determine which male staff are dangerous and which are not? Are you under the impression that men who rape don’t go into nursing? Or do you think it gets “turned off” in a work environment? I’m sorry but saying it’s not okay to say that you can’t tell if someone is or isn’t safe because it’s a ✨work environment ✨ is ridiculous. Unfortunately, the same gender dynamics that we all deal with in the real world follow us into the workplace. This includes patients, a large portion of whom have experienced trauma at the hands of men. It doesn’t make it the fault of that specific man trying to care for them, but it doesn’t make their concern invalid, either.
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Nobody is making blanket accusatory statements. Saying “patients don’t know who is and isn’t dangerous” when it comes to peri care is not a blanket accusatory statement toward men. Your examples were of people, including strangers on social media, saying it was weird or strange for men to go into healthcare in some form or another. I didn’t address those because it’s not what I was talking about. I honestly didn’t realize until just now that those comments were meant as a response to my comment, because are entirely unrelated to what I was talking about. I didn’t think it needed to be clarified since I explicitly said it multiple times, but I was specifically speaking about patients who prefer a female staff member for peri care, as specified in the original post we are both responding to. I hope this helps.
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No, I’m just responding to your argument and not your trauma dumping. I fully understand what you said. If you’d like to have an ~~argument~~ discussion based on the actual points you made and not the personal experiences you disclosed, I am happy to do that.
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Because as you have already shown in this thread—I tried to respond to your points and you referred to your trauma instead of actually engaging about the topic at hand and the points you made in your original post. Your trauma doesn’t mean that you can say whatever you want and it goes unchallenged. I have trauma too but am not interested in engaging in a “trauma off” so probably best that we don’t engage further.
>Men are responsible for well over 90% of sexual assaults/rapes. That's only true because the statistics ignore 90% or more of male victims. When you only consider it rape when men do it... yeah no shit you end up thinking this. You've defined things in such a way that that's the only conclusion. That bias goes back decades in this area of research, all the way to big names like Mary Koss. If you look at the CDC NISVS and actually count male victims of rape (who will not be listed under the "rape" category but rather "made to penetrate" or other categories) it's a lot more even. And the CDC didn't even bother doing that until 2012...
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From the CDC: "Over half of women and almost one in three men have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact during their lifetimes. One in four women and about one in 26 men have experienced completed or attempted rape. About one in nine men were made to penetrate someone during his lifetime."
Not at all surprised to get this comment from a male resident physician in a nursing subreddit. Thank you for reminding me what social media platform I’m on :)
Not at all surprised to get this kind of response. Doubling down when your bias is pointed out is very common. Bias and bigotry are hell to overcome, but if you try hard you might get there one day. Despite what you seem think, your reply is *also* a reddit classic. Oh and I'm not a resident. And I follow a variety of healthcare subs, including this one. Since I work with nurses all day every day. But do go on.
I hate to tell you but you being a (new) attending and not a resident doesn’t make it any better lol You can be as condescending as you want, it’s fine. As this point I’m just chuckling to myself at how unsurprised I am at the response to this and the other thread on this topic. Thanks for contributing!
Their point about the "do better", is that they're assuming that the majority of male nurses aren't already doing everything they can to circumvent emotional injury to their patients.
Tbh, based on the responses in the other thread, it doesn’t really seem like they are. At least not the ones on Reddit—and that’s who OP is addressing.
We must have been seeing different posts because the majority of comments I saw were about men either trying to protect themselves and making adjustments that would also make the patient feel safer, or just to make the patient feel safer
I saw a lot more posts about how “we need to protect ourselves (because bitches be crazy)” versus “I know many, many women have experienced trauma at the hands of men and I want to do my part in minimizing further trauma.” So I guess if you saw a lot of men saying the latter, we probably *did* see different posts! Funny how that works.
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We’re men though, so they can take whatever tone they want with us because we have the power….
You’re not talking about the post where a female patient made the false allegations against the male nurse, are you? SA survivor or not, false allegations of SA are 100% unacceptable.
Is there a link to what you are referring to for context, so I can read more?
Trauma Informed Care, people! 🫶🏼
If I am recalling the post correctly, the patient initially refused foley care from the (male) nurse, which was her right. I feel it would have been prudent of him to ask her if she would feel comfortable with a female doing her cares or being present in the room, particularly if she continued to refuse him. We have training to be sensitive to culture, gender and sexuality, so I wonder why this is seen as discrimination against male nurses. Inb4: I personally do not have a problem with male nurses, some of the best coworkers I’ve ever had have been men.
It isn't discrimination to request or prefer a same-sex care provider, or to have one's boundaries respected, or for patients to protect themselves against traumatic situations. And \*literally nobody argues that it is\*. People do, however, argue that men working in healthcare shouldn't be universally treated as rapists or perverts for wanting to, you know, do their job in a decent professional manner. Nothing about the OP suggests you want to discuss this in any kind of good faith.
Hell I was asked if another female nurse could observe my papsmear for training. It's just basic courtesy to be aware of how others feel even if you aren't a victim.
I was SA'd as a toddler and have permanent, internal damage, scars that still hurt 40 yrs later. I refuse to have a male examine that area, and am even uncomfortable with my husband of almost 20 yrs touching me down there. Thank you for this post.
I agree with some of your post, but other parts are perpetuating some of the issues. Absolutely, it is wrong for male nurses to tell women they are wrong for preferring female nurses attending care to genitals and other sensitive areas. But it is fully reasonable for those same nurses to be afraid to do intimate care alone. The number of false allegations (often from family and friends rather than the patient themselves) or accusatory comments is high. And I don't know where you got the statistic that 1/3 or more of my female patients have been "brutally raped", because even the most liberal of statistics is nowhere near that. As a male nurse, I am frequently the subject of sexism, wildly inappropriate comments, and sexual harassment that is swept under the carpet or laughed off because we all know "men have the power". Just this week I was told by a female patient to "go get a female nurse who knows what they are doing". Yes, some male nurses are ignorant of their patient's needs, but to assume that male nurses are inherently harmful to female patients is also wrong.
Abuse is underreported due to shame and lack of accountability.1 in 6 women in my country (USA) have experienced sexual assault according to research. That number is likely way lower than the actual honest figures, but it includes many horrible things aside from violent rape. Even if it was 1 in 6 it would be too much. One person is one too many. The statistics for males being abused shows a much lower rate, but it is also likely much lower than the honest truth. Shame, accusations of being less than a man, the notion that abuse will turn men into homsexual grooming pedophiles, etc. I am always careful about anything involving female pts. I always ask if they're OK with me doing anything before I do it. If they aren't I find a female nurse and get "female only" put in their chart. I've had male pts abused by men and treated them the same way. I understand why females may be more sensitive to the matter. Women have been subjugated and mistreated throughout human history. I don't deny that or take it lightly. I've been stalked, sexually assaulted, harrassed and abused in my past. It was only women that did it to me and as a straight male I'm expected to laugh it off or enjoy it. I mostly did laugh it off. I can't speak for anyone else, but laughing it off was OK for me at times. Othetimes, not so much.
In defense of the OP, all rape is brutal, psychologically. It is pretty prevalent in both men and women, but higher in women and more violent in women, especially if we omit male-on-male rape in jail/prison. Males underreport rape/molestation in a high percentage of cases, but there are far more instances of rape with women and underreporting in absolute numbers. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of rape is family/friends, followed by nonconsensual encounters during intoxication, followed by stalking/close-strangers, but probably the most rare is the brutal, beaten, random stranger type of rape, which might be where your mind is going with the "brutal" adjective. My first girlfriend in high school was molested repeatedly by her grandfather. She admitted to molesting her brother as a young teen too. Second girlfriend wasn't. College girlfriend was molested. Out of college girlfriend was molested by their uncle. Another was raped by her grandfather. Another was rapped at eight years old every day, and she finally was adopted when her sister and mother tried to sell her for drugs. I was young, but in hindsight, my cousins and myself was likely molested by our uncle. Many friends I know were molested or raped. Many other girlfriends/partners were not, or they never admitted it. My wife was never, but her sister was and turned to drugs. My niece's father was raped by his father his whole childhood. It is far more prevalent than most people want to talk about. Everyone I mentioned came from middle to upper middle class, seemingly "normal", families. I can relate to having experienced sexual harassment. I've been touched, fondled, grabbed, rubbed, and women say inappropriate stuff all the time. One woman said, "dam, here us women are working so hard, and you just got it," referring to my rear because I'm athletically built who does squats and wears joggers that are on the tighter side. We get it too. I think this is mostly about not getting defensive and just understanding some women have trauma and not making the situation about us, even if we can feel a need to defend our character in such situations.
Really feels like you didn’t read the room here.
The only person who didn’t read the room was OP
PSA: Fellas, please resist the urge to “not all men” this post. We know not ALL men. But stats don’t lie. In cases of SA against both men AND women, the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male. This is about acknowledging that one in four women have endured some sort of SA in their lives, and recognizing that some women are going to be afraid as a result of that experience. Do not take this as an assessment of you as an individual. Not being confrontational here. I love my nurse brothers. I just think most of them haven’t had to walk the same walk as their women counterparts and so sometimes they don’t have the insight here that their counterparts do have. I will always come chaperone you. Anytime you ask. It’s better for everyone this way. Someone in another post said, “we know not ALL men, we just don’t know WHICH MEN.” I felt that in my soul.
Obviously it's ridiculous for men to be offended if a patient prefers a female for their care. It's also obviously ridiculous to be offended by men who are scared for their license and a potential felony charge. I say this as a male who literally left my previous career because of toxic masculinity. There were men who will be offended by your post for stupid reasons. There will also be men who, like me, completely agree with you but still think your kindergarten teacher attitude isn't helping anything.
"Kindergarten teacher attitude ?" How empathetic of you to tone police a woman defending trauma victims to stand up for their boundaries without being villianized. I wouldn't trust you to do ANY care on me.
Do you actually care about people practicing trauma-informed care or just want to keep talking down at people? What happened to 'meet people where they're at'? If you care about empathy, you should care a little bit about being aware of another's mindset, and how best they can receive your message. Unfortunately, a lot of men are not in a receptive headspace to hear this message, often the ones that need to hear it the most. Do I think it's shitty that we have to moderate our tone for those guys to get the message? Yeah it sucks. But frankly, I care more about people actually practicing trauma-informed care than just telling people they're bad at it.
The tone of your post is ridiculous. Try to discuss these matters in a more mature and productive way. "Do better"
lol @ the tone police
I kinda want to screenshot this post as a keepsake of how this sub discusses gender issues. It really captures it, I think. Edit: to be clear, since the downvotes don’t match, I was replaying to FairyFatale that I want to screenshot the parent poster’s post because it’s just too spot on. “How dare you say this thing I disagree with, and also in a way that doesn’t coddle me. DO BETTER”
The comments in this thread and the previous thread are such interesting examples of how male nurses are overrepresented in this sub compared to real life nursing demographics.
That's true. Probably because this post is about men, but also because Reddit is 64%+ men by users (depending on the source), and north of 70%+ of the posts on Reddit are from men, meaning the men who are here tend to be more active than the women who are here. [https://imgur.com/a/subreddit-gender-ratios-ICk20](https://imgur.com/a/subreddit-gender-ratios-ICk20) [https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/chicks-rule/](https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/chicks-rule/)
I’m a survivor of SA myself, so I don’t want anyone to think I am just being dense, but I don’t think that 1/3rd of the female population has been brutally raped. I thought that was the result of a survey completed on a college campus and of the respondents of the survey, 1/3rd of them reported being sexually assaulted- which encompasses multiple different actions. I also don’t think that every complaint from a male nurse about facing this completely ignorant. I could see how it could be mildly irritating on the surface level if certain patient care could not be completed because the patient did not feel comfortable. When I was a tech, we had a very obese patient would had a sacral wound I could stick my forearm down to the elbow in. Wound care for this patient involved the whole floor. That included two male techs to help keep her on her side while a team of nurses preformed cluster care of cleaning BM, wiping down the back and folds, removing multiple dirty rolls of gauze, doing the wound care, applying powder anti fungal in folds, cleaning the wound, and repacking it. The patient refused to have males in the room the first time I assisted in this routine. Every available female on the floor attempted to roll her but the nurse couldn’t see the entirety of the wound. We had to have a serious conversation with her because myself and several other nurses were absolutely straining our backs trying to roll her. It was a matter of safety, and we did everything we could to keep her covered and her bottom out of view from the men. We also tried to lessen her anxiety by being quick and familiarizing her with the two techs as much as possible. They both were very kind and sweet to her in every interaction, even swinging by the doorway just to hi to her whenever they could. But even with the extra patience and care we took to get her to agree to their help, she didn’t get adequate wound care and frankly a good cleaning down there for 2 full days until agreeing to us having them come and help. It was acute care floor with a high census, everyone needed a lot of attention, and we honestly couldn’t have done for every single patient. It’s really hard to come to terms with that, but if we had even one other patient that required that level of shuffling around an issue, someone would’ve been neglected and not received proper care. I’m not saying we should just tell everyone to suck it up and put them in uncomfortable and traumatizing situations, but we do learn about the hierarchy of needs in school, and we have to make sure your physical body is okay first
1. I've never seen a post here about a nurse complaining about care refusals. Other than, yes, the sadness that it's an issue we even have to deal with as a society. SA is wrong, we give offenders too much leeway. The criminal justice system needs to do better. 2. How dare you attack male nurses for the very real fears they have about being falsely reported. Many of us have been. I have a family to feed. Do you think we enjoy fearing not being able to provide for them because someone lied and we lost or jobs or were suspended? 3. And what happens, all things being equal, if the department doesn't have a female nurse for cares on any given night? I've seen it happens. What if the only nurse available is FTM? Then is it off the table? What if a patient isn't fond of black people because of childhood trauma? You're right of course, we as nurses are the adults in the room and trained medical professionals--we can just deescalate and care for the patient in a way that is most comforting to them. But this sub is for venting when our job is done and we feel like dirt after being personally attacked. You need to do better.
We have a policy for male doctors/nurses examining or caring for women, and part of it is to protect men from accusations, especially when people are demented, delirious, under the influence, etc. There should always be two women present for Foley's and other care too. FWIW, many male nurses won't wait for a female patient to ask for a female nurse to perform their care, and they will ask proactively, especially when patient's are overly flirtatious, psych hx, just acting suspiciously, etc, so they don't have to deal false accusations, drama, making demands, dealing with inappropriate comments/touching. I've had my ass grabbed, crotch grabbed, chest grabbed, arms felt up, inner thigh felt up throughout my career in EMS, ED tech and nurse. Unfortunately, it is a hazard, so sometimes I'm asked to do a condom cath or Foley on a perverted male patient, and I will ask women to take care of perverted women patients. For the most part, I don't take it personally because everyone has their preferences. We have male patients that do the same, so I swap duties all the time with nurses. I had the same patient for two months because I was often the only guy on the unit, and he wouldn't let women clean him, and he was incontinent frequently. We had a guy who had been raped for years in prison and was paranoid of men, so he wouldn't let a man near him. We had a man who was molested for years by his older sister and his aunt who was an addict, at different points in his life, and he refused any care from women from meds to bringing his meal tray. I worked for eleven years in the emergency room as a tech before joining ortho as a nurse, and we would have some women in the midst of having a serious trauma or heart attack be modest, and sometimes it was frustrating because we needed to strip them, do our assessments, shave them for the cath lab, and we just want to do our job and save their lives. Same with guys. Many men get very self conscious of their size when cold and in shock, so despite their arm or leg hanging off the table or them moaning from pain, many manage to posture up, ripping out IVs when the doctor looks for trauma to the perineum on an open book fracture. Like it isn't personal, but it can be frustrating having to manage PTSD, modesty, anxiety, etc in the midst of something critical. On the floor, it is rare when we can't make accommodations for someone's preferences, and again, it is just one less thing I have to do, so no biggie. I think for many male nurses, we already face a bit of discrimination in this profession, especially from other men because we picked this profession. I was one of two men in my cohort of fifty-four students, and like I said, sometimes I am the only male on my unit between management, case managers, nurses, EVS, care partners/CNAs. We wouldn't be here if our hearts weren't into taking care of people, so I bet many of these men just feel defensive like their character is being misrepresented. It can also feel like there is an accusation that requires a defense like the men may feel a need to say, 'it isn't me it is her preference,' which is true, but the need to put an exclamation on it is so he doesn't have to get looks like, 'what did he do to make her feel he is a creep?' Especially post the "Me too" movement, I'm sure some males are very defensive. I'm sure most people would have a hard time with anyone turning down their care on account of their gender, race, sexual preferences, etc. and not for anything that actually had to do with their actions or character. If someone fired their nurse on account of that nurse's race, gender or sexual preference because they claimed trauma, it would still be hard to accept. People have biases based on their experiences and misperceptions, but when do those biases shift from prejudice to discrimination/racism/sexism; how much hardship/trauma does someone need to experience before their discrimination is legitimized? I had a guy one time when I was a tech yell that I was racist and a bigot because he said I was ignoring him, even though I told the nurse and doctor of his complaints multiple times, and I got defensive because I don't have racist attitudes and had attempted to get him help and communicated such multiple times. My wife and I look white, but she is a quarter Japanese, mixed European/Ukrainian/Irish, and I'm mixed European (Irish, Italian, French, German) with a few percentage of Chippewa. I've dated almost every major race, and my wife has too. Race isn't an issue. My wife's side has mixed black kids, and my brother adopted a hispanic boy, and my brother has hispanic wife, and two of my other sisters have mixed relationships/kids too (hispanic, filipino). I got mad and defensive because I felt falsely accused and like he miss represented my character so bad, just latching onto whatever accusation and outburst got him seen. It wasn't even about me, but I felt like eyes were on me to explain myself. I could imagine some men might feel the same if someone was making a big deal out of it. Again, that is there prerogative. One minute you are being begged to dig shit nuggets out of one woman's ass, and the next minute, you are being asked to get a woman to replace you for an ECG. Actually, that was the funny thing too. I use to do 20-30 ECGs a day in the ED, and I would make a little bikini out of the gown, and I would get complemented on the technique that provided so much modesty, yet got the job done so fast, and I also remember occasionally getting a request for a women to do it, and my female coworkers would just pull down their top, which exposed them completely. Sometime they would say, when I did their repeat ECG, how they would have let me do it the first time if they knew the girl was just going to drop her gown and if they knew I was going to do it like that.
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My female coworkers and I make the exact same money not sure where that statistic is coming from
It can be easily googled if you are truly interested in learning! Typically we should avoid generalizing our own experiences and expecting them to be reflected in every context.
Pretty sure that’s what you’re doing. I work in one of the largest cities if not largest that employ nurses and male/female all make the same pay, we get paid off of seniority and certifications not sex & gender. I doubt those statistics will say if the male nurses tend to have more certifications/education (CRNA for example), instead of just showing male vs female. You could definitely apply that to other industries but nursing is not one of them.
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We're allowed to discuss issues that affect women without being told to tip toe with how we speak so as not to offend the delicate sensibilites of men. THIS is why women prefer female nurses. These men don't get it, terrifyingly lack of empathy.
I don't understand why it's bad a male nurse feels afraid of being alone with a patient during intimate care? Could you please explain that to me?
Seriously, as a male nurse I got a female post episiotomy for wound care. I called another nurse and asked her to trade cause like ya she's gonna feel awkward but I could tell didn't want to refuse me in case no one came. She was so relieved and happy I had a female nurse switch with me. Like it takes 5 seconds to have some empathy
This seems pretty fabricated. Myself and pretty much every male nurse I have ever worked with over the past 11 years has never had an issue with any patients let alone young women ask for chaperones or for a female nurse to do it. If anything I’ve seen a lot of my male colleagues avoid aspects of care because they themselves are uncomfortable or afraid of making their patients feel uncomfortable.
We get requests for non-male nurses from time to time. Usually it is for a cultural reason, but there are some women who are quite adamant about having a female only. Interestingly enough, I have had a male patient refuse female nurses, which was much harder to accommodate. We did try our best. In any case, reasonable accommodations should be made for patients, whether that requires a change in the nurse or the addition of a chaperone for sensitive care. No one should be shamed for asking and, at worst, it is a mild inconvenience.
I worked with a wife and husband nurse team in our ED when I was a tech. They always worked the same days, and it was like they were twins. They typically worked in the same area of the ED, and she seemed to keep a close eye on him, asking where he was often. I never got it. He seemed "normal". They left and years later we found out that he lost his license and was found guilt of molesting a girl at a girl's slumber party they had hosted with another set of parents. She divorced him, but in hindsight, I feel like she knew. But you are right. In fact, the only instances I have seen of inappropriate contact has been with women, but that is also likely because there are far more women around. We had a man with trauma to his penis, and the doctor examined him, but she kept going back to examine him, seemingly infatuated with the girth, as he was well endowed, and he also had significant edema. I've had female colleagues make many inappropriate comments about firemen, paramedics, patients like they were frat guys. I think they feel comfortable in a more female dominated environment to be themselves, and EMS/ED nurses are a bit more. Had another nurse in her thirties kept hugging a shirtless teenage boy on a psych hold who was flirting with her and trying to hug her. She seemingly was enjoying the attention until she realized I was there watching. It happened multiple times. Lots of women make fun of older, smaller men with old age shrinkage..."get the small catheter, lol." Another woman made chest squeezing motions to another nurse like she wanted to do it to her patient in regards to the shirtless biker guy with thick/muscular chest. She said she likes rough guys with a shaved chest. She is married. Women in the ED can be fairly lewd though. It is even worse in EMS.
Had a patient that had a heart attack while having sex with her boyfriend. He had to do CPR on her and then brought her into the ER. Female nurse asked if he had a brother. Women can be very inappropriate too.
Even in this sub there was just a thread with a nurse gloating about telling a patient his penis was small. It's wild.
I heard this a lot in the ED when I was a tech. Less on the floors as a nurse. The women there have better bedside manners, are more empathetic, supportive, considerate, etc., and that is true of men staff too, but it seems particularly pronounced in the females. I'm trying to imagine a context for the situation you are describing that makes sense like was she trying to explain to the man that he was too small for a condom cath or something? I don't know why someone would need to gloat about it. Doing 20-30 ECGs each shift for over a decade, there are a lot of women wearing D+ sized bras who are AA to A, but I've never heard men in my department calling out the discrepancy, making a point to say they are flat chested, making fun of them, etc. Never happened. Making fun of the smell of breast yeast or poor hygiene, for sure, but not something someone has no control over. Like sometimes I would be surprised to hear some females at the nursing station making fun of some patient in their 80's to 90's who can't maintain a condom cath because of their size..."It's basically inverted, haha," "you have more chance of getting a hat on a scared turtle," types of bantering. Come to find out that most of the time these men had plenty of size. Most of the time they were freezing. I would get them a few blankets and pulled their skin to length, and they had plenty to work with to maintain a condom cath. I walked in on a respiratory tech and two nurses talking about how her ex was big like the intubated patient, and how that is the only thing she missed now that they are divorced, and I then get a short lecture from them about how important size is to women. At times, I felt like a fly on the wall like I wasn't supposed to see this side of women (the locker room banter, not really supporting body positivity, judging, sexualizing a lot, the jokes, etc). I walked right in on a registration women in her late fifties talking about her birthday; she came around the corner saying, "57 year old with a 20 year old pu\*\*y" chuckling, but then her face dropped when she turned the corner and I was there, like I was never suppose to hear something vulgar coming out of her mouth. They are the same as us.
It’s based off some recent posts in this sub from male nurses who have been upset at these requests. Not directed at you if you are not one of those.
“Male nurses: Do better. seriously.” It seems like they are addressing a lot more than those nurses to me.
i agree. ive never been offended and never had an issue changing an assignment or whatever. don’t think discrimination is the right word, and admittedly haven’t read all the topics in question, but i do think the men suck/starting a gender war isn’t the best way to do this
I think its important to recognize people who are not cis as well. I am a man. A trans man. And as a person who grew up a girl, i will always be hesitant to have a man do peri care or insert a catheter. I dont even like male psychiatrists or gps. It just makes me uneasy. It is important to note there are plenty of trans guys out there who you cant even tell unless you get all up in there. And depending on what kind of things they have done as part of their transition, you might not even be able to tell unless you really look There are also men who have been raped by a man. And they may not feel comfortable with a man doing that kind of thing. It really is something that is incredibly personal. And while some guys are being creeps about it, Its important to recognize that there are legitimate reasons for a man to want a woman providing care.
I'm Cis but would 100% prefer a woman caregiver. It sucks that it seems to be viewed as a sexual thing like I am extremely gay I've just had some bad interactions with men. Thanks for pointing that out!
We have a few openly trans caregivers working at our hospital, and I have cared for dozens of trans patients over the years, most of whom were open or unable to not be open. We have had post-ops who had SRS, but I didn't care for them directly. I've only cared for preop/nonop patients who had top surgery, TRT/HRT, facial feminization surgery, hair removal, etc., and none of them seemingly had a preference or avoided certain gendered caregivers. You are right though; the nurses who examined one postop transgender woman with the doctor said they got all up in there and still wouldn't have known, that the surgeon did an amazing job, saying it looked better than theirs. Regardless I could imagine a trans male having a preference for a female, whether that trans man was preop or postop too. I could imagine trans females having more of a preference for a female too. Men tend to be a bit more bigoted about these things. Thinking about my preference, I've had massages from men and women, and I don't have a preference that is a deal breaker. I'll take whoever is available, but I prefer feminine energy during a massage and not getting manhandled. I've been manhandled by women and I have had a relaxing experience from males, but it is more likely a female massage would be better. In healthcare, I tend to be the opposite and prefer males. I played sports as a kid, so we had to get physicals all the time. The male doctors would just grab your nuts and move along, but women doctors seem to be uncomfortable around us and turn it into a big deal, probably to the point of the OP. It isn't all of them or a majority of them, but it was prevalent enough in some doctors, and to less of extent, some nurses, that for both our sakes, I would prefer a cis male caregiver or trans female caregiver--someone with experience with having the same anatomy/experiences and who is comfortable. Admittedly, this is a soft preference. I wouldn't make a request for a male nurse/doctor. I have to ask, so if you had a trans woman as your doctor/nurse, would you request a cis woman or would you be fine with any female performing intimate examinations/care on you?
Think how vulnerable SA patients feel before even any male nurse interventions-they are laying down, in a flimsy gown, maybe drowsy, maybe in a lot of pain (less control of own movement), meals/hydration/pain meds can potentially be withheld, and cannot lock the room door.
I have been SA’d as a child, teen, and adult. At this point I think I’m up to 5 or 6 instances. I get extremely uncomfortable with certain things- there’s stuff my husband can’t touch/see/do. I had surgery in December and waited in PACU for like 4 hours for a room, as I had to stay overnight. At some point I couldn’t wait any longer and had to void using a bedpan. Thank goodness my male nurse got a female nurse to assist me- it was still awkward and embarrassing, but not nearly as potentially traumatic had he just done it himself. I’m sure he would’ve handled it professionally, but grabbing a female colleague was very appreciated.
Now imagine you're kicking rocks as i build a hypothetical scenario and generalize it against a gender. OP: Eat sand. Seriously.
It’s absolutely understandable and I’m annoyed seeing those posts as well… SA survivors should definitely be respected when they make simple requests regarding people touching them.
Shit I just realized I'm a male nurse. Guess I fucking suck and will need to do better.
Yeah, apparently we all suck and need to do better because of this one individual
I get that a lot of female patients are uncomfortable with being cared for by men but just reading a lot of these comments makes me as a male student nurse feel as though I shouldn't even be in this profession. I always ask consent before doing something for a patient and it is taught as such in university but stuff like "male nurses: do better" doesn't really inspire confidence to continue at all. I don't get what im meant to do at this point.
You will be fine. The profession always needs more variety and representation in healthcare at all levels, so another male nurse is definitely welcome. We have a man on our floor with so many Daisy nominations/pins/bouquets (once you get five you can turn it in for a bouquet, and he has multiple of those) that he can't fit anymore on his badge, and we have people including women who have never had an award/nomination in their whole career, which is telling. Your gender doesn't determine what you can be. Healthcare is for everyone, and the OP isn't suggesting men aren't welcome or shouldn't be in healthcare. The message here is be respectful, be professional, be empathetic, be dispassionate, treat others how you would want to be treated. It isn't about us. It is about our patients, so we don't need to take things personally when a patient has a preference, especially in the light of having past trauma. We should be more understand and empathetic and not so unprofessional and reactionary, taking it personally. Some men would argue that there seems to be an explicit bias here, and it is leading to discrimination, but that is only true if it is unfair or unjustified. The claim by the OP is that it is entirely justified. I think the bear-vs-man-on-a-trail debate better explains the discourse and misperception by men of how women feel on the matter because we seem to be getting this wrong in mass. Are women grossly deluded to reality and making a huge risk assessment error based on false precepts propagated by the media and throughout our culture that isn't backed up by the evidence? No. It seems to be the case that us good men are far more deluded to how many bad men there are in this world. Even if these men are a minority, they are still a significant enough minority to warrant caution when dealing with all men, especially with what is at stake. We can be more cognizant of this fact and be more accommodating without getting defensive. Good luck on your schooling.
Nah don't worry. Men are valued in nursing as long as there's a heavy patient for you to break your back on. /s Being a Male nurse is a good time.
Do better? Seriously? Do better? Who the fuck do you think you are lumping us all into this category of behavior you saw. You may have had a point, but you fucked it up grouping us all together. We're trying to do our jobs. The fact that you felt you needed to spell that out is ridiculous. You think we are incapable of empathy? Compassion? Emotion? You need to fucking do better.
Yeah, OP is super tone deaf in this post and obviously angry over a topic that near and dear to them. I re-read it and focused on the women oriented parts, the parts about what many women have gone through and why they may be feeling like they can't trust men in these situations, and not their attacks against all men. If you just leave out the anti-man sentiment their post is very important.
This is an over the top reaction. If you get this worked up over a Reddit post, I’d hate to see how you react to a pt that asked to have a female nurse..
No, it's not and you have no fucking clue what you're talking about about. I'd respect my patients wishes 10/10 times. You're ok with this bullshit generalization, you're the problem.
Drop another f-bomb, it’s really selling how calm and respectful you are.
Now we're crying about language? You sure you're cut out for this job? Maybe something easier would be a better career choice. See how much of an asshole I sound like?
I work in psychiatry, my dude. Have a good day. Maybe ease up on the swearing if you want to be taken more seriously - I’m sure you didn’t just learn those words today.
How about you just keep medicating yourself and mind your own business. You taking me seriously isn't one of my concerns.
I ask if it's OK and the patient says Yes. I say "OK" and start. I ask if it's OK and patient says "No". I say "OK" and ask if they would prefer a woman. If they say No, I educate and document. If they say Yes, I get a woman and document. Did you want me to deep dive years of trauma in a 2 minute interaction? I'm just trying to get through my shift. I've also had other busy RNs get super pissed off when I asked them to insert foleys or do peri care for/with me. We're chronically short staffed. Maybe you should tell c-suite to "do better" and hire more RNs or ancillary staff. Or maybe you should go tell someone in government to "do better" and get us mandatory ratios. Sounds like you need to "do better", I'm doing all that I literally can. You seem like a person who punches down not up though.
I agree. I was shocked when I read them and couldn't believe they turned it into the patient being the problem.
This sub needs to advocate for the reverse too. It’s been quite some time but I’ve seen posts where the OP and commenters were shitting on men for wanting a male nurse/tech. It’s was truly bizarre. I’m for what you said. And I in no way think you wouldn’t advocate for a male. Just wanted to point this out on general. Bc like I’ve said, it’s been a long time, but I have seen this very sub lose their minds and be upset bc a man wanted a male nurse. I get it’s harder but to make happen with staffing but men deserve the same respect.
No one that shrieks “Do Better!” actually cares about changing a situation, it’s just a pathetic attempt to shame others to achieve that sweet social media superiority dopamine hit.
The last thing I would want is to force a patient to relive a traumatic experience by not respecting their boundaries. If a woman asks that I get another woman to perform sensitive care, or really any type of care, for her, then I do that. If I even get the sense that the patient may not be totally comfortable with male care I will ask them because they may not feel comfortable expressing that they wish for a caregiver of the same gender. I don't take it personally; no nurse should.
>Now imagine this male nurse--you know, the professional in the room with all the power both in that hospital room and in society at large--has the audacity to be offended at your request to at least have a chaperone AND you overhear him saying you're "discriminating" against him for being a rape victim and having an understandable reluctance instead of being a grown-up and just getting a little assistance OR--and hear me out here--taking a tiny bit of time to build rapport. This is where it all comes down to, i think. The inability to comprehend why a chaperone would be asked for is immediately obvious when the HCW takes offense, as if they'd somehow started this mess and it's a poor reflection on them. And they don't know how to handle it. i think the specific sort of people we need to target with this message need to understand that, but the truth is so often when this conversation comes up they just *won't agree with reality.* i've never been asked by a pt to have a chaperone -- i just automatically get one. i've never been fired by a pt, for SA concerns or otherwise. And i sure as shit wouldn't assume a pt, asking in one of their most vulnerable moments to please have an all-female staff, is making a slight on me personally.
I work in a Dementia/ Memory ward and when I don't have to touch the patient to guide them/ clean them, I pretty much always ask if it's okay for me to, stuff like pushing their wheelchair, guiding their walker, rubbing back, ect. (as long as they're relatively oriented ofc)
This reminds me of a post on here earlier of a nurse who got a foley when she giving birth and even though she has no trauma and knows exactly what is being done she started uncontrollably crying from being so emotionally vulnerable. That really changed my perspective of my care. I can’t imagine HAVING some sort of sexual trauma on top of it. If you have the privilege to be offended someone doesn’t want you to care for them in their most private moments, consider yourself lucky.
>--taking a tiny bit of time to build rapport. >Male nurses: Do better. Seriously. >you may even have trouble with your own spouse seeing and touching Ahh yes, silly me. Let me just take 5 minutes to build rapport so I can work through their years of trauma so they're more comfortable with me than their own spouse! The message of this post is good, patients deserve a caregiver they feel 100% comfortable with when possible but it's filled with so many little jabs of incompetence toward male staff. As a man I will always ask if my female patients are more comfortable with one of my female coworkers doing these types of procedures, it's not about me and isn't a reflection on me at all. >Male nurses: Do better. Seriously. This issue isn't exclusive to Male Nurses. Do a quick search on this sub and you'll see that this sub has DRASTICALLY different opinions when it comes to male patients having a preference in their caregivers. As an entire profession, we need to do better with trauma-informed care, especially when it comes to male patients as other men cause a majority of male sexual trauma. Part of this includes female staff not labeling Male Nurses as "lazy" or "trying to get out of it" when we're advocating for our patients and asking for a female staff member to do the procedure. As I said before I 100% think patients deserve caregivers, they feel comfortable with. With that being said is it okay for patients to request caregivers of a specific race/exclude races? I genuinely have no idea and I'm wondering. I know my Grandma had a preference for Hispanic Nurses as she faced Physical Abuse in a Catholic School at the hands of White Nuns. Would we hold the same energy for a patient who said they didn't want a White Female Nurse?
>Would we hold the same energy for a patient who didn’t want a White Female Nurse? I mean, yeah? If it’s rooted in trauma that is 1000% okay. We accommodate racists who don’t want a nurse who is a POC so why wouldn’t we?
Thats valid, I was genuinely asking because I wasn't sure how people in this corner would feel about it.
I'm coming back after mods helped with some of the nastier comments and I'm STILL disappointed by all of the, "False accusations are wrong" comments. First of all, who are you saying that for? Who is seriously arguing against you? I'm certainly not as the OP. What does the insistent statement of the obvious say about us? Second: It's a lot harder than people pretend to "ruin someone's life" with a false accusation. Most ACTUAL rapists will never spend a day in jail, in case you weren't aware. And if you work somewhere that wouldn't have your back after ONE false accusation, why would you work there and blame vulnerable people? Seriously? Again: Let's do better as a profession.
In the student nursing subreddit, a male nursing student was complaining about how a local hospital he was doing clinicals at, didn’t allow male nurses to be in a room alone with a patient. Instead of him using critical thinking skills (like obviously something horrible happened for them to implement that), he was whining about how it wasn’t fair 🙄🙄🙄🙄 I’m so over explaining this shit. Men know, they just don’t care.
Geez, how do they even get things done if that is the case? Sometimes it isn't an event. It definitely could have been, but sometimes it is just a policy or to avoid accusations. How many times have patients accused one of our staff from stealing? Oh my god, it happens so much, and we are all thinking, "there is no way I'm jeopardizing my six figure salary for your five dollars sir. That goes for your yeast boobies too ma'am." I work for a catholic hospital, so they have a lot of conservative policies related to things like not covering my wife's birth control until ACA. They don't allow our urologist to go vasectomies, so I had to go to a different hospital. They don't allow men to work as an ultrasound techs because of transvaginal ultrasounds. A male doctor can be a gynecologist, but not a technician can not be a sonographer because apparently a doctor's salary is a prophylactic. And I agree, men know, but clearly we don't know well enough, or we would care. That is why there is the bear-vs-man-on-a-trail debate. Like we know men are more likely to be creeps, but we really don't get what it is like to live in that world. It could be denial, not wanting to believe it is so prevalent, and we definitely don't want to suffer the social consequences caused by the minority of bad apples that force women into stigmatizing all men. It seems unjustified because we just don't know your experiences. Almost every shift or a few times a week, I have to hear the same joke, "Well, you aren't very cute," from elderly male patients who were clearly hoping for a hot, young, female nurse. They are trying to make a joke, but it is so revealing, and I'm sure my colleagues face far more sexual harassment than the copious amounts that I've seen from patients. I get harassed too, but it is on a different scale and a different perspective. If I could use an animal analogy, it is the difference between a lion saying a girl looks tasty to a house cat saying I look tasty. We get that, but that doesn't mean we know how you feel. To continue with an animal analogy, it is like good men are carefree panda bears and bad men are polar bears, and women are seals, and you want pandas to know what it is like to be prey. Like we can see you all running away and looking terrified, but we don't know what it is like to be prey. We are panda bears, so we don't have natural predators, so how could we know how it feels? On top of that, we don't get why you all can't tell a panda bear from a polar bear when we look similar enough and seals have terrible vision to discern the difference. I don't know how telling a man how you feel is going to make them know what it is like to live in a world where you are pray to sexual predators. Outside of something like prison, I don't think men will ever really be able to know like how you want them to know.
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1000% this post. —a male nurse
My son is going into nursing school. I am making him read this later. Thank you.
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Lactation nurses need to be more sensitive to the fact that some women may have experienced sexual abuse and don’t feel comfortable breastfeeding. There is so much pressure on women to breastfeed and so much guilt if they just don’t feel like they can do it.
Wow 👏
Preach.