I think we should create a masculine-sounding word for "nurse", like "(patient/care) (guardian/maintainer/technician)". Nursing still sounds like breastfeeding (check the etymology!), which I'd reckon sounds offputting to most men.
Neologisms are cringe, but demeaning men is as well.
I have been wondering how long it would start to take before historically female roles would start courting men the way STEM has been courting women the last couple of decades
After years of "why are men dropping out of the workforce" articles it seems we finally are seeing some people come to their senses that yes, you do actually still have to "court" men to enter different careers to make it seem like appealing work for them to do
When I went to school for radiography (X-ray) in 2024 I got an additional scholarship for being a male in a female dominated field (healthcare), I believe it’s pretty common? I think it was apart of the FASFA or something, been a minute though.
The more everyone the better! There are definitely times when it’s nice to have some guys with muscles around when it comes time to transfer a non ambulatory patient to an X-ray or CT table, but the ladies get it done too!
Nursing is a hardcore meat grinder, with companies worse than Uber taking advantage of nurses with algorithmic pricing scams, including credit checks to lowball.
3x12 hrs on 4x days off, or 6 on/8 off, TC pushes into mid/high 100's a few years in, often a union job, hands on outcomes, adrenaline if you want it, AI-protected enough (see: often a union job).
I don't get it. I'm in the rural south and male nurses are common (although it is facility by facility I imagine). Not as many as women, but still, it isn't something I notice anymore.
Look out for organizations in your state, similar to what happened with Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association (AzHHA)... I knew about it a few years before the 2007 settlement as my ex-wife an dMIL were working for a Nurse staffing company at the time.
I'm a male healthcare worker (cardiac sonographer), and even though there are a lot more women, there were never any barriers for me because of my gender.
If there's a shortage, it's because employers need to pay more, same as every other labor "shortage." Nursing is in demand everywhere, and not everyone has what it takes to do their work. If they could be making more money somewhere else, that's where they'll go.
A couple of years ago, I compared my salary to all my friends in the same field, and found they were all making at least 25% more than me. I asked my work for more money, they said no, so I left. Last I heard they can't find anyone who'll work for so little except fresh grads who can't keep up with the heavy workload nor the high quality demanded by the doctors. And several nurses have told me similar stories.
I think it's also a perception thing. In the last 10-20 years or so it's changed quite a bit, when I was younger you had "nurses" and "male nurses". Nurses were automatically female, so any who weren't were explicitly tagged as such because it was such an exceptional thing.
It's sort of like IT and engineering, that was exclusively male at one point. Not because women were excluded but because computers were things for geeks and dorks and completely uncool to be associated with.
(Technically that's not 100% true, we did have one female student on display in a glass case at the entrance to the School of Engineering).
Two comments about this being fake news, based upon my wife having two nurse friends:
MDs are nationally organized and have a fixed career path. Nurses are more "you do you" career path and if a news story about shortages doesn't specify licenses assume they're scamming you. There's a big difference in supply/demand curves for a state licensed 3-month CNA vs a NP with 30 years experience. Flooding the CNA supply by lowering standards will not magically make 30 year experienced certified APRNs appear, at least not for another decade or two.
Female coded jobs have very short career lengths. There's a reason there's a shortage, management makes everyone quit. Average nurse career length is only 8 years. Its not as bad as public school teacher but its pretty bad. Everyone knows the RN with 20 years experience makes six figures etc. Mostly because management forced 90% of her peers to quit and she'll all thats left and it takes six figure salary to keep her. The high pay is not exactly a glowing endorsement of working conditions LOL. Most whom enter the field will burn out long before they get high pay or "cool jobs".
I would comment that everyone knows their field of expertise is mostly inaccurately described in mass media, but surely every other field is accurately represented. This situation unfortunately applies to all areas of expertise including nursing. Articles like this annoy nurses much like mass media portrays of "computers" and "computer people" annoy us with their inaccuracies.
Nursing has become a pretty bad job in modern times, and being a male nurse tends to have more downsides. Exploitation is high in the nursing field, support staff are non-existent, mandatory overtime is common, patient ratios are trending up, break times are non-existent in some areas, being assaulted is increasingly common. Being a male also tends to mean you are expected to do the harder or heavy lifting parts the majority of the time in addition to all the other problems the profession has.
In the US, nurses suffer some of the highest rates of job-related injuries. I know a male ex-nurse and a male ex-EMT, both of whom left the career due to injuries. That I know more male than female ex-nurses (ex- for this reason) suggests that male nurses are de facto called upon for heavy-lifting jobs in the hospitals. It makes sense, but those are exactly some of the situations that lead to OTJ injuries.
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 18.3 ms ] threadNeologisms are cringe, but demeaning men is as well.
After years of "why are men dropping out of the workforce" articles it seems we finally are seeing some people come to their senses that yes, you do actually still have to "court" men to enter different careers to make it seem like appealing work for them to do
The more everyone the better! There are definitely times when it’s nice to have some guys with muscles around when it comes time to transfer a non ambulatory patient to an X-ray or CT table, but the ladies get it done too!
Nursing is a hardcore meat grinder, with companies worse than Uber taking advantage of nurses with algorithmic pricing scams, including credit checks to lowball.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/21/healthcare-n...
And the real money at all is in RN. There's a reason the LPN is known as "low paid nurse".
I'd rather head into the trades than nursing.
Lot of nurse converts soon I think.
If there's a shortage, it's because employers need to pay more, same as every other labor "shortage." Nursing is in demand everywhere, and not everyone has what it takes to do their work. If they could be making more money somewhere else, that's where they'll go.
A couple of years ago, I compared my salary to all my friends in the same field, and found they were all making at least 25% more than me. I asked my work for more money, they said no, so I left. Last I heard they can't find anyone who'll work for so little except fresh grads who can't keep up with the heavy workload nor the high quality demanded by the doctors. And several nurses have told me similar stories.
Just pay.
It's sort of like IT and engineering, that was exclusively male at one point. Not because women were excluded but because computers were things for geeks and dorks and completely uncool to be associated with.
(Technically that's not 100% true, we did have one female student on display in a glass case at the entrance to the School of Engineering).
MDs are nationally organized and have a fixed career path. Nurses are more "you do you" career path and if a news story about shortages doesn't specify licenses assume they're scamming you. There's a big difference in supply/demand curves for a state licensed 3-month CNA vs a NP with 30 years experience. Flooding the CNA supply by lowering standards will not magically make 30 year experienced certified APRNs appear, at least not for another decade or two.
Female coded jobs have very short career lengths. There's a reason there's a shortage, management makes everyone quit. Average nurse career length is only 8 years. Its not as bad as public school teacher but its pretty bad. Everyone knows the RN with 20 years experience makes six figures etc. Mostly because management forced 90% of her peers to quit and she'll all thats left and it takes six figure salary to keep her. The high pay is not exactly a glowing endorsement of working conditions LOL. Most whom enter the field will burn out long before they get high pay or "cool jobs".
I would comment that everyone knows their field of expertise is mostly inaccurately described in mass media, but surely every other field is accurately represented. This situation unfortunately applies to all areas of expertise including nursing. Articles like this annoy nurses much like mass media portrays of "computers" and "computer people" annoy us with their inaccuracies.