Newbie - supporting men who are students

Wow, having just registered I was deeply distressed to read depressed newbies experiences and equally impressed to hear the fantastic support and wisdom offered.

I am a nursing lecturer in New Zealand and am concerned that we do not well support our male nursing students. Unfortunately it is often not until third year that male students realise they have not had a fair crack or have developed the confidence to discuss it.


Our University nursing school has several male nursing lecturers (quite well represented for a NZ nursing school) and we are currently trying to develop tools to better support our male nursing students, I am dead keen to hear of suggestions please. So far we have:

*Set up a public notice board to celebrate mens contribution to nursing
*Set up a discussion forum - regularity of meetings still being developed
*Made accessable all male lecturers for students to approach directly to problem solve etc

I would really like to hear other ideas about how other male nurses, students and teachers support each other.

****o!

At The Ohio State University are several initiatives to support men nursing students. All of them have been initiated by students.

1. Local chapter of a national group: Buckeye Men in Nursing; affiliated with AAMN.

2. Men's Health Task Group: designing a seminar and possibly a curriculum about men's health issues that are of particular interest to the male nursing students; being coordinated by the only male on the tenure track in the college; supported by a female full professor.

3. Self-formed support group: men in the grad entry program meet regularly for dinner and margaritas to talk and support each other.

In my 30 plus years as a nurse I have found a few female nurses who seem to have a problem with male nurses however they have been few and far between.
In many of the facilities I have noted that male nurses hold the majority of the management positions. As more males enter the profession the salaries increase. Probally because women often view nursing as a calling rather than a profession. They suffer from the "Mommy syndrome". They just don't realize their own worth, they give away their talent and their time.

all the way down. . .