When you hear the word “nurse,” what are the first three words that come to mind? There is no doubt that “caring” is one of them. Maybe “compassion,” “trusted,” or “hardworking.” But what about the nurse’s gender? It’s OK if you thought “female,” because you wouldn’t be alone.

Longstanding societal stereotypes have made it such that we associate women with the nursing profession. I myself fell prey to this stereotype early on in life. When I graduated from college, I was working at a hospital in New York City where I worked closely with both doctors and nurses, and even though my gut was telling me that nursing could be the right profession for me, every nurse I worked with was female. So instead of applying to nursing school, I decided to take post-baccalaureate premedical courses and went the physician route.

It wasn’t until I turned 28 in 2010 that I decided nursing was in fact the right profession for me. It was the obvious choice because I knew I had the attributes that make a great nurse. Knowing that I could make a real difference, I disregarded the fact that only 9% of nurses were male at the time, and I pursued an accelerated […]