Hospitals Campaign to 1)Recruit Male Nurses

Broadcast: Jan 11,2003

 

Walk into the lobby of Box Butte General, and the first thing you see is a life-sized cardboard display featuring the medical facility's four male nurses and information brochures about nursing as a career. Hospital official Jane McConkey, who came up with the idea, said she wants to reach as many people as she can during the one-and-a-half-year-long campaign.

"You know, I was thinking how can we get more people into the nursing profession and in maybe an untapped area where we really, nursing's been female dominated for most of its history, and there is only about five percent of the total RN population that is male," she said.

Possibly the biggest reason for such a low number of male nurses, is the ²⁾stigma¹ attached to it. Men in the healthcare profession typically become doctors. A man who chooses to be a nurse is often looked upon with suspicion or even scorn.

In movies, like the 2000 comedy Meet the Parents, in which a nurse meets his future in laws for the first time, men in the profession are good for a laugh.

Father-in-law: "You know, Greg's in medicine too, Larry.
Larry: Oh really? What field?
Greg: Ah, nursing.
Larry: That's good! No, really, what field?
Greg: Nursing.

Ben Andrick has gotten that same reaction since he began working at Box Butte General Hospital two years ago. He said the stigma attached to being a male nurse is not as prevalent inside the hospital as it is outside of work.

"You get some eyebrows² that are raised, but from the patients and the people in the hospital they say the male nurses are better," he said. "I think the only time I had difficulty was in the OB wards³, the nurses there pretty much let me know that this was a woman's world, but for patient-care unit, I didn't have any difficulty at all."

Mr. Andrick used to be a mechanic and work construction jobs in California but sometimes business was slow. The classified ads always had job postings for nurses, but he said embarrassment⁴ about what people might think if he became a nurse held him back for a long time.

"I did a lot of job shadowing in different other occupations, and I job shadowed behind a male nurse that worked in a cancer ward," he said. "And I saw that I could do this, you know that that stigma... once you are there ... it doesn't exist as much as it does, you know, on the outside on how it is viewed."

Changing 'how it's viewed' is what Jane McConkey wants the "Boys to Men to Nurses" campaign to do. Along with the display in the hospital lobby, the campaign uses public service announcements and educational outreach. The message that boys can be nurses, too, is getting out through the public library's story hour for preschoolers and presentations to area schools, as well as Boy Scout⁵ troops and other youth groups. Ms. McConkey said educating kids at the earliest age possible is one of the keys to breaking the ³⁾stereotype⁶.

"Perceptions start young, so if children are going to have gender⁷ biased⁸ ideas as far as what careers are acceptable, those ideas start when they are pretty young." Ms. McConkey explained.

Ms. McConkey said young boys need to know that not only is nursing an acceptable career option, it also pays well. Incentives⁹ and student loan payback opportunities are common in many hospitals. At Box Butte General, the salary for a registered nurse starts at more than $16 an hour, with a $2,000 signing ⁴⁾bonus for a two year commitment. Nurse Ron Brown said he's able to raise a family on what he earns.

"The wages are very competitive, granted they aren't as high as sitting at a computer in an office or something, you can probably make more money, but I don't see the reward there like you do in nursing, the people that you affect everyday," he said. "You see them on the street after you take care of them, a lot of times you have to look at them sideways, because when you see these people in the hospital they are laying down."

Ron Brown says when his son was younger he was reluctant to tell his friends what his dad did for a living. But now, Mr. Brown says, that's changed as his son gained a better understanding of what nurses do and realized that it is not such a big deal that his father is a nurse. With the help of campaigns like "Boys to Men to Nurses," Mr. Brown hopes that society, like his son, will also change its perception of male nurses.

I’m Jason Frederick Alliance, Nebraska.

1)    Recruit [ri5kru:t] vt. 征募,使恢复, 补充vi.征募新兵, 复原

2)    stigma [5sti^mE]n.污名, 耻辱

3)    stereotype [5stiEriEutaip]n.陈腔滥调, 老套 vt.使一成不变

4)    bonus [5bEunEs]n.奖金, 红利

1 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

2 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。

3 wards   

区( ward的名词复数 )； 病房； 受监护的未成年者； 被人照顾或控制的状态

参考例句：

• This hospital has 20 medical [surgical] wards. 这所医院有 20 个内科[外科]病房。
• It was a big constituency divided into three wards. 这是一个大选区，下设三个分区。

4 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。

5 scout   

n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索

参考例句：

• He was mistaken for an enemy scout and badly wounded.他被误认为是敌人的侦察兵，受了重伤。
• The scout made a stealthy approach to the enemy position.侦察兵偷偷地靠近敌军阵地。

6 stereotype   

n.固定的形象，陈规，老套，旧框框

参考例句：

• He's my stereotype of a schoolteacher.他是我心目中的典型教师。
• There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen.人们对于成功商人一直都有一种固定印象。

7 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

8 biased   

a.有偏见的

参考例句：

• a school biased towards music and art 一所偏重音乐和艺术的学校
• The Methods: They employed were heavily biased in the gentry's favour. 他们采用的方法严重偏袒中上阶级。

9 incentives   

激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机

参考例句：

• tax incentives to encourage savings 鼓励储蓄的税收措施
• Furthermore, subsidies provide incentives only for investments in equipment. 更有甚者，提供津贴仅是为鼓励增添设备的投资。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法