To Recruit More Men, Rebrand Nursing as ‘Masculine’? Or Just Stop Oversimplifying the Profession
As a registered nurse for more than 40 years—with experience in pediatrics, public health, and philanthropy—I read a recent article by NPR’s Shankar Vedantam (“Why More Men Don’t Get Into The Field Of Nursing”) with interest. Vedantam essentially argued that more men don’t enter nursing because it’s seen as a “feminine” profession and proposed that we start emphasizing the more “masculine” attributes of the profession.
From youthful contrarianism to a deeper vision of the profession.
When I became a nurse in 1975, my choice was shaped first by my youthful desire to be contrarian: to bend gender norms by being a man in a “woman’s” profession.
When I began practicing nursing, however, I grew in my understanding that a commitment to nursing, particularly in my specialty field of public health, provided me with the means to act every day in concrete ways to further healing and build community. And so I applaud calls like Vedantam’s drawing attention to the need for more men in nursing. The need for diversity (of all kinds) in nursing was highlighted in the 2010 Institute of Medicine’s Future of Nursing report.
