Bringing in More Males in the Nursing Profession

40 years ago, patients would call for assistance, and lady nurses wearing womens scrubs will come. It's very rare to see men in those nursing scrubs, tending a patient. Even in small clinics, resident nurses are often female. But that was ages ago. In the recent years, the medical industry opened all its doors to male nurses. And now, males are becoming more in the nursing profession. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, male nurses comprise about 6% of the nation's entire nursing community. Presently, the nursing profession is predominated by females, having only an up of 3% in recent male population. However, at the start of the nursing industry, on 4th and 5th centuries, only men were allowed to enter the profession due to beliefs regarding cleanness and purity. Things turned the other way around when nurses were virtually all-women after they've been organized in 1917. Men were kept off until 1930, and started to gather in the nursing world again in the 1950s. In Ohio nursing schools, there've been a total of 18 enrollees during the year 1953. The number climbed to 49 in just the city of Cleveland during the fall enrollment in 1971. In the coming years, gender issue will be neutralized, and the community is expected to become gender-free. While predictions are optimistic, recruiting men to enter nursing remains a challenge not just in the U.S. but also in other lands. In Canada, for instance, more men give up taking up any nursing course. That's aside from the fact that nursing schools are often filled to capacity; one interested person may have to try three or more times in order to get in. And in the face of global economic meltdown, landing a job in the nursing profession can be an even greater challenge. On the other hand, United States' new health care system projects increase in need of new nurses. The problem is where will these new nurses come from? If more male nurses would join the industry, the nursing shortage which has been a big problem for many decades already, will be mended. Buy first there are a lot of things needing adjustments. It's necessary for the national professional nursing organizations must improve the image of nursing. Nursing schools must also increase recruitment of minorities, in connection with accessible nursing programs. It is also necessary to improve salary rate as well as benefits. And of course, stereotypes need to be cleaned off and replaced with more positive role models. Only then, can nursing and nursing scrubs be truly attractive to men.