NURSING: Noble Profession of Comfort and Care . . . ?

. . . . or just a Royal Pain in the Ass?

I'm a Nurse. More specifically, I'm a male Nurse, which many see as a contradiction in terms. Very specifically, mostly by other (female) Nurses.

An example, if I may. I always tell people I've been a Nurse for 25 years, because I consider it to be true. I re-enlisted in my second tour in the Army to become what they call a 91C10 (or "Ninety-One Charlie") to get better promotion opportunities. I attended a ten-week Combat Medic Course from June to August 1980, followed by the ten-week "Ninety-One Charlie" course from August to October; which was swiftly followed by six months of on-the-job training at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri from November 1980 to March 1981. So after 11 months of medical training I was officially awarded the title of 91C10 in March, 1981.

And promptly had it taken away in April.

You might ask why -- I know I sure as heck did. I had re-enlisted for a specific job -- only to have it rescinded a month later? What's up with that?

The explanation were complicated. It seems that several (if not, indeed, MANY) of the graduates of the 91C10 course were challenging the LPN (or LVN, depending on your state) boards of their home states and being granted licenses in their home states after graduating as 91C10s. At that time in the early 1980's LPN Nurses were a two year degree, and someone somewhere didn't like the idea that eleven-month wonders could become Practical Vocational Nurses.

I've frequently found that when an explanation is that complicated, somebody's hiding a nasty truth. The theory I've heard from more than one Army nurse is that it was not the quality of the nurses that civilian nurses found unpalatable; and the quality of these nurses was never in question. (Army-trained nurses consistently score in the top 10% of their licensure boards.)

It was the fact that the military was filling the nursing pool with male nurses. They were Gender Offenders; highly competent, capable nurses that were almost exclusively male in a traditionally female profession.

I laughed the first time I heard this, and you might, too. In the intervening years I've seen far too many nurses make rude, sexist comments to dismiss it easily.

Another story might illuminate more completely. I was interviewing for a nursing job in Valparaiso IN one time, and had a ten o'clock appointment with the Director of nursing to interview. I arrived to my interview in a shirt, tie, and dress slacks.

As I was waiting for my interview, the UPS girl came in to pick up a package. The receptionist called into the Director's office to tell her UPS was here to pick up, and her 10:00 am appointment was there as well. (The UPS girl was dressed in the traditional brown Dickies uniform of UPS workers, I might add.)

The Director of Nursing came out with a brown-wrapped parcel, which she put into my hands, saying "that needs to be there tomorrow, okay?" She then took the UPS girl into her office -- and as soon as the doors closed, the laughter began.

The laughter died fairly quickly, though. The Director of Nursing interviewed the UPS girl for almost five solid minutes before realizing her "mistake." When she finally did come out and get me for my interview, she spent almost a half-hour convincing me I wouldn't like working there -- that I was more of a "Home Health Nurse", and would be happier there.

(In other words, you're not good enough to work for a regular employer. Go work with nurses who have to worry from day-to-day about if they'll have work tomorrow.) And lest you think this is simply my own paranoid ravings, the demographic that the Nursing profession is losing fastest is males with under three years of nursing experience. Has been for the last 15 years, too.

The one thing about the "Center" where I recently worked? You don't have to be a female nurse to be sexist about men you work with.

Some days I just despair; but most of the time I laugh my butt off at the idiots I used to work for. I must be feling melancholy this week, otherwise I don't know why I'm sharing this.

Heh.