User:Raminurse

Men and Nursing
Men in Nursing History .. Since the 16th century, there have been male nurses,Forget what you thought about male nurses. Six percent of all nurses in the United States are men and they have hobbies that are as diverse as any other profession. In fact, Bill Stacy races in the Fastruck Racing Series in Florida on asplanlt tracks from Daytona Beach to Ocala. See his website at www.stacymotorsports.com

Men in Nursing - A History More Men in Nursing Links Related Issue: Male Mid-Wives

Men in Nursing - A History

The first nursing school in the world was started in India in about 250 BC. Only men were considered "pure" enough to become nurses. The Charaka (Vol I, Section xv) states these men should be, "of good behavior, distinguished for purity, possessed of cleverness and skill, imbued with kindness, skilled in every service a patient may require, competent to cook food, skilled in bathing and washing the patient, rubbing and massaging the limbs, lifting and assisting him to walk about, well skilled in making and cleansing of beds, readying the patient and skillful in waiting upon one that is ailing and never unwilling to do anything that may be ordered." Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld006.htm

During the Byzantine Empire nursing was a separate occupation practiced primarily by men. In the New Testament, the good Samaritan paid the innkeeper to provide care for an injured man. No one thought it odd that a man should by paid to provide nursing care. Story of the Good Samaritan found at: Luke 10: 35-36 Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld007.htm

In every plague that swept Europe men risked their lives to provide nursing care. A group of men, the Parabolani, in 300 AD started a hospital and provided nursing care during the Black Plague epidemic. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld008.htm

Two hundred years later St. Benedict founded the Benedictine nursing order. St. Alexis was a fifth century nurse. The Alexian Brothers were organized in the 1300's to provide nursing care for the victims of the Black Death. Today both groups continue in their work.

Military, religious and lay orders of men continued to provide nursing care throughout the Middle Ages. Some of the most famous of these were the Knights Hospitalers, the Teutonic Knights, the Tertiaries, the Knights of St. Lazarus, the Order of the Holy Spirit, and the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony.

Two patron saints of nurses stem from this period. St. John of God and St. Camillus de Lellis both started out as soldiers, and later turned to nursing. St Camillus started the sign of the red cross which is still used today, and developed the first ambulance service. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld009.htm

Fray (Friar) Juan de Mena was the First American Nurse icnne.boisestate.edu/1stnurse.html

Seventy years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, Fray (Friar) Juan de Mena was shipwrecked off the south Texas Coast. He is the first identified nurse in what was to become the United States. Two lay brothers, Friar Juan de Mena and Friar Marcos de Mena, were badly wounded...

Friar Juan de Mena received an arrow in the back; and with other Spaniards, he died after going a little more than a quarter of a league. From the time this friar donned the habit in Santo Domingo of Mexico, he lived an exemplary life. Among his virtues, especially noteworthy was the humble charity with which he tended the sick. He was Mexico's nurse, esteemed and praised for his diligence until the time he was deceived, along with others, into leaving his province for Spain and was led to his death. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld010.htm

John Ciudad (1495 -1550) founded the order of the brothers of St. John of God or the Brothers of Mercy in (1538). He opened a hospital in Grenada and asked a group of friends to assist in providing care to the mentally ill, homeless, crippled, derelicts, and abandoned children. Men of this order also visited the sick in their homes.

St. Camillus de Lellis (1550 -1614) founded the Nursing Order of Ministers of the sick. Men of this order cared for the dying, people stricken with the plague, and alcoholics. St. Camillus opened a hospital for alcoholics in Germany. Source: www.newadvent.org/cathen/03217b.htm

James Derham was an African American man who worked as a nurse in New Orleans in 1783. He was able to save enough money to buy his freedom from slavery. He later studied medicine and became a respected physician in Philadelphia and the first African American physician in the United States. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld011.htm

In 1808, Lazaro Orranti and Martin Ortega were two men employed as the nurses at a hospital in San Antonio. The hospital employed only men as nurses.

A century later a sign above the door to the San Antonio hospital nurses quarters stated "Entrance to No Mans Land." Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld012.htm

In the middle 1800's England became embroiled in the Crimean War, and the United States fought the Civil War. During the Civil War both sides had military men serving as nurses although we only hear about the Union volunteers, who were predominately female. The Confederate Army identified thirty men per regiment to care for the wounded. The Union also had men in the military serving as nurses. Men, including Walt Whitman, served as volunteers. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld013.htm

Walt Whitman (1819-1892), poet and writer, served as a volunteer hospital nurse in Washington, DC during the Civil War. He recorded his experiences in a collection of poems called "Drumtaps" and in his diary, "Specimen Days and Collect". Source: guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/whitman.htm

Prior to the Civil War both male and female slaves were identified as "nurses."

Victoria Clayton describes "old Joe" who was "my husband’s nurse in infancy" being entrusted with the care of the plantation, while the white men of the plantation were fighting in the Civil War. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld015.htm

The wars decimated the male population of both England and the United States. More men died in the Civil War than in any other war in US history. Following the Civil War the United States went through a tremendous expansionist period. It was the time of manifest destiny. Besides the men who died in the war, many male survivors went west. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld016.htm

In 1863, women physicians founded New England Hospital for Women and Children to provide medical and nursing education for women.

Three years later the Alexian Brothers opened up their first hospital in this country. They educated men as nurses. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld020.htm

On March 10, 1890 the first nursing school in Texas started. It was proclaimed in the Galveston Daily News as "a new field in which educated women may find a means of support"

There were nursing schools for men. The Mills School for Nursing and St. Vincent's Hospital School for Men were started in New York in 1888. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld023.htm

As the turn of the century drew near, female nurses started to organize. In 1894, the Superintendents of Female Nursing Schools gathered in New York for their first annual meeting. The Nurses Associated Alumnae (note female form of Alumnus) of U. S. and Canada had their first annual meeting in 1898. Delegates to the 1900 convention contained only one married woman and no men. The Nurses Associated Alumnae became the American Nurses Association in 1917, and men were excluded until 1930. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld024.htm

One of the early accomplishments of the female nursing organizations was to exclude men from military nursing. In 1901 the Army Nurse Corp was formed and only women could serve as nurses. The U.S. military nursing changed from being predominately male to being exclusively female. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld026.htm

It was not until after the Korean War that men were again permitted to serve as nurses in the military. During the intervening decades men who were Registered Nurses enlisted and were drafted, but were not assigned as nurses. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld027.htm

Once men were again permitted into military nursing, the numbers also increased in civilian nursing. Nursing schools, which had denied admission to men, began to admit them. Gradually the numbers of men in nursing increased from less than one per cent in 1966 (ANA, Research and Statistics Department) to the 1996 five per cent (Division of Nursing.BHpr/HRSA/US DHHS). Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld028.htm

Today men are resuming their historical role as caring, nurturing nurses, just as some women are resuming their roles as physicians. After a century as a predominately female profession nursing is changing again. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld029.htm

One group working to support and promote men in American nursing is the American Assembly for Men in Nursing. Source: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/sld030.htm

Men In American Nursing History - This information was taken from Professional Nursing Practice, 4th ed. By Blais, Hayes, Kozier & Erb. www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6011/ (last updated 11.5.97.)

Source: www.nurses.info/history_men.htm

More Men in Nursing

Men first began to enter the nursing profession in the late 1950's. Today, approximately 5.4% of the 2.2 million nurses are men. However, a 2000 survey found that almost 13% of the students enrolled in nursing school are men. Dwight Elliott is the only black male in his graduating class at East Carolina University. "It has been kind of tough being a black male in a predominantly white female profession." Another black male nurse said that he had gotten questions like "Are you an orderly?"

There are certain areas in hospitals (such as labor and delivery and nursing units) that are still closed to most male nurses. However, Ramon Lavandero, Director of the International Leadership Institute of Sigma Theta Tau International, had a very positive experience working in obstetrics. He was offered three positions in women's health care after graduation.

The American Assembly of Men in Nursing is a fairly new organization which is open to both men and women who share "our beliefs that nursing is a profession, not a gender-based profession," said Gene Tranbarger, President-Elect of the organization. Source: www.unctv.org/ncnursing/meninnursing.html

Links

Other websites of interest: American Assembly of Men in Nursing which provides a framework for nurses, as a group, to meet, to discuss and influence factors, which affect men as nurses. Source: people.delphiforums.com/brucewilson/

MaleNurseMagazine.com represents one of the corner stones to a growing list of resource that are dedicated to men in nursing. This site and its sister resources are not intended to create a gender gap or bias, rather to explore issues that are of concern to men in nursing and strategies to address these issues.

Nurselookup.com, where male nurses and other medical personal lounge.