Amid nurse shortage, a university rolls out the welcome mat for men

https://text.npr.org/nx-s1-5869813

by mooreds • 1 day ago

37 80 1 day ago

text.npr.org

ogogmad• 1 day ago

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.

branon• 1 day ago

This is a nice idea but I think practically the shift will come not from instituting gender-affirming nomenclature but rather redefining male biases.

The idea of being involved in an important (and historically female) profession dedicated to compassionate care should be received as honorable by men irrespective of the job title's femininity. I disagree that it's demeaning.

bryanlarsen3• 1 day ago

I think what would help a lot would be a strong male nurse as a lead in a medical television drama. We've had strong male nurses in secondary characters, but not as leads or co-leads.

A sexy male nurse should appeal quite strongly to the traditional medical drama audience; it'd let a studio follow the traditional formula but be enough of a change that it's not a rehash.

Georgelemental• 1 day ago

"Patient Care Technician" is already a thing, it's a level under nurse

all2• 1 day ago

I've been calling sports physios "body mechanics" for quite awhile now. A much more appealing term, IMO, and it cuts to the heart of what the job is about.

seemaze• 1 day ago

Serve your country and join the war against malady by enlisting as a front line high 'T' tactical germ fighter today!

quadrifoliate• 1 day ago

That's likely what people will still call them, regardless of the neologism. I am not opposed to the neologism, but like most, it will be really hard to agree on a single one so we should continue to use "nurse" and ignore its etymology meanwhile.

yoyohello136• 1 day ago

Emergency department Tech is already a job

Larrikin• 1 day ago

I wonder how many comments will complain about DEI for men.

fhdkweig2• 1 day ago

When I was a kid, I thought that nurse/doctor was a gender specific term. They went to the same schools, but when they graduated, men were called "doctors" and girls were called "nurses". It was an embarrassing moment when I found out that, no, they are not the same thing.

TMWNN• 1 day ago

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6AYJ9YQpxQI

qup2• 1 day ago

It's not DEI.

When you're short on nurses, trying to invite men isn't DEI.

If we had plenty of qualified nurses, but hospitals made quotas saying that 20% of nurses must be men, that would be DEI.

It's replacing merit (let me sort for "best available nurse" and hire that person) with another attribute (let me sort for "male nurse," then sort for "best available nurse in the male group", and hire that person). If you hire the best available male nurse, you may have passed on the best available nurse. Given the demographics of nursing, seems likely.

Anyway, they're not talking about having a surplus of candidates, so that doesn't apply.

bonsai_spool• 1 day ago

What does the ‘I’ stand for in DEI?

Say a man thinks nursing is for women and not for men. Say an employer wants more nurses irrespective of sex. Is that employer engaging in DEI if they spend more money on male re-education than on recruiting women?

bluefirebrand4• 1 day ago

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

bryanlarsen3• 1 day ago

I think schools have been courting male teachers for quite a while now.

And according to the article, this courting of male nurses has also been going on for many years.

TimorousBestie2• 1 day ago

Yep, can confirm. I was aggressively recruited for education as a math undergrad. There was no way that was going to happen, too many people view male teachers as inherently predatory.

bluefirebrand4• 1 day ago

Maybe!

Could be just me, confirmation bias or whatever but around 2010-2020 it felt like you couldn't go two minutes with tripping over a "we need more women in STEM" article but this is the first I feel I'm ever seeing about "we need more male nurses"

And male teachers have always felt fairly plentiful starting around high school levels to me, and going into university. Not in primary school, but people don't seem to trust adult men around children as a rule so that might be why

Teever2• 1 day ago

These kinds of programs have existed for decades. You've been wondering about that not because these programs weren't there but because you weren't looking for them.

There are a lot of good reasons why we want more men in nursing. For personal reasons some patients may respond better to interactions with men. Additionally men being on average larger and stronger then women is an advantage in a society with many overweight and obese people.

bluefirebrand4• 1 day ago

You've been wondering about that not because these programs weren't there but because you weren't looking for them

I wasn't looking for grants as a woman in compsci either, but I sure heard about those

There are a lot of good reasons why we want more men in nursing.

I never disputed or questioned that

rylando• 1 day ago

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!

nekusar3• 1 day ago

Yeah, hard pass.

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.

kishkash2• 1 day ago

I'd rather head into the trades than nursing.

Honestly they both seem miserable for similar reasons. When a big selling point of a job is “oh you can get a ton of overtime” I lose interest. I don’t care how much money you’re paying me, it comes out to less when you consider hours worked.

Interestingly, this seems to be the only reason a lot of jobs are considered “high paying”.

BeetleB3• 1 day ago

And the real money at all is in RN.

When people refer to nurses, they mean RN's, typically.

And yes, don't become an LPN or anything less than an RN.

testerteert000a8• 1 day ago

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).

Lot of nurse converts soon I think.

dominotw• 1 day ago

and you can specialize and keep improving in your path, its not a deadend like lot of ppl belive.

petcat2• 1 day ago

You have to actually like the work though. It's one thing just to recognize that it's a good career with a lot of security and good pay. But if you don't actually like the work, i.e taking care of people when they're at their worst, then you are going to be 100% miserable within 5 years and looking for another career change.

testerteert000a8• 1 day ago

After decades of clicking on different spots on screens and keyboards, the real stress in exchange for that, and now your peers in AI companies have found a way to unemploy you - there's a lot to like with hands on care that does something tangible that tech rarely does.

bryanlarsen3• 1 day ago

The local hospital had 2 nurses who committed suicide during COVID. Nursing attracts high compassion individuals and then overworks them so that they cannot provide a proper level level of care. Add the stress of a demanding physical job and the stress of shift work and you end up with one of the professions with the highest female suicide rates.

tracker16• 1 day ago

It definitely takes a certain personality type to be good at it. Empathy, discipline, self-control and infectiously friendly.

On the plus side, men do have an advantage regarding size/strength in terms of being able to help disabled people move. I think this is probably part of why a lot of men become EMTs (similar field/training).

yoyohello136• 1 day ago

I’m actually taking prerequisites at a local cc to start an accelerated BS in nursing. Feels like one of the few jobs that’s still going to be in demand.

testerteert000a8• 1 day ago

me and you both! i had a big tech job, made enough/seen enough to read the writing on the wall and plus having a way to exit, off to RN before others do.

tracker16• 1 day ago

There's also plumbing, a/c and electrical work... general repairman stuff, etc. Assuming you're okay working hands on and potentially in more stressful environments (weather).

I'm largely with Mike Rowe on this one... it's been a shame the level that people have not been directed into more vocational fields and the level of skilled labor shortages as a result. Higher education has largely been self-serving, not community serving.

BeetleB3• 1 day ago

TC pushes into mid/high 100's a few years in

Maybe in California. I don't think that's the case in most states, unless you're doing a ton of overtime. I know someone who makes $130K/year in my state, which is amongst the top paying states. Has over a decade of experience.

testerteert000a8• 1 day ago

I suggest you look at where nurses unions are nationwide, and their collective bargaining agreements! Nurse unions aren't just in blue states named California.

TheAtomic• 1 day ago

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.

pavel_lishin• 1 day ago

It feels the same here - I've visited hospitals (as a guest, not a patient) quite a bit over the past year+, and I've noticed quite a few. I think women still outnumber men by at least 2:1, but it's not uncommon.

I'm guessing the goal is to get that parity up to 1:1, or something close.

goda90• 1 day ago

I see quite a few male nurses too, except for in the birthing and family care suites when my wife gave birth. All women across the several days we were in hospital, with the exception of a few male OBs and lab techs.

fusslo• 1 day ago

From 2022 to 2024, the percentage of men in nursing decreased from 11.2% to 10.4%.2

https://www.aacnnursing.org/news-data/fact-sheets/nursing-wo...

drivebyhooting• 1 day ago

Why can’t we have more doctors?

dessimus• 1 day ago

The issue for doctors isn't medical school but the bottleneck is residency slots available post graduation.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12256077/

EvanAnderson2• 1 day ago

That's an excellent link for getting down into the details. Thanks for posting it.

This editorial argues that the long-standing cap on residency slots, originating with the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, is the key structural constraint throttling the U.S. physician workforce.
In the 1990s, influential groups like the American Medical Association (AMA) and Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) had become convinced the U.S. faced an impending “physician oversupply.” In March 1997, just months before the BBA’s passage, a consortium of medical organizations, including the AMA, went so far as to recommend reducing the number of residency positions by 25% (from ~25,000 slots down to 19,000) to stave off a surplus [4]. “The United States is on the verge of a serious oversupply of physicians,” the AMA and others warned at the time.

(Not sure how I feel about the ideas the editorial poses about using ML in a supervisory capacity for residents, though...)

EvanAnderson2• 1 day ago

The number of Medicare funded residency slots are limited by law. Medical schools won't graduate more doctors because residency can't be guaranteed. Who wants to be the med school who graduates doctors with >$100K debt and no path to licensure?

In the 1990s the AMA lobbied congress to get the number of Medicare-funded slots limited. This was done in response to a projected "oversupply" of doctors (preventing a deflationary effect on doctors' compensation). That limit has stuck and now, even though the AMA is lobbying for the removal of the limit, the damage to the supply of doctors has been done and it's a process with a long pipeline.

mishellaneous• 12 hours ago

The number of Medicare funded residency slots are limited by law.

why don't hospitals fund residencies themselves? from what i hear, residents are poorly paid (they make less than nurses) and work long hours (almost like they "reside" in the hospital). i bet they even make money to the hospital.

what's more, when you look at what people pay for healthcare in the USA, money to train residents is peanuts. it'd even make economic sense for people themselves to pool money together and fund residents which would then take care of them as an "alternative" to insurance.

tracker16• 1 day ago

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.

engeljohnb• 1 day ago

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.

Just pay.

bastawhiz• 1 day ago

Came here to say this. So many of my friends are male nurses. The thing that keeps them from sticking around is the pay. There's only so much crap you can take (literal and metaphorical) for a terrible salary. My housemate worked at UNC here in North Carolina. Not only was his pay terrible, he had to pay for on-campus parking. And if there was a sports game, he wasn't allowed to use the parking lot (having to park substantially further away and take a shuttle).

The people running the system are so completely disconnected from the experience of being a nurse that they're destroying the industry from the top down.

yoyohello136• 1 day ago

It's kind of wild that our system seems to be specifically set up to exploit people who care.

Sociopath who views people as just a barrier to their goals? Promotion to CEO, billion dollar bonus. Millions of tax dollars spent to bail you out of trouble.

Empathetic person willing to literally put your body on the line for other? Shit pay, shit hours, one unlucky break away from destitution.

What's even crazier is the majority of Americans seem to like it this way.

nekusar3• 1 day ago

It's kind of wild that our system seems to be specifically set up to exploit people who care.

Not at all. Caring has traditionally been woman pursuits. And you can underpay cause they care.

There's a ton of academic studies under the terms of "emotional labor". Retail is emotional labor. Nursing. Education, childcare, health care, social work, hospitality, media, advocacy, aviation.

And those jobs pay trash precisely because people (read: women) care. So they're exploitable.

The jobs that you exploit others and forced not to care pay the most.

Balgair• 1 day ago

You know what? I'm glad that nurses and healthcare workers are finally not thinking of the patients first and are thinking of their pocketbooks too.

No, really, I mean it.

For decades, the healthcare complex has been exploiting these workers to our detriment.

The supply of workers is really high, typically, as there is this nobility to the professions. You are a 'helper', you are 'doing something with your life', you have a 'calling'. That extra feel-feels accounted for a lot of extra people in the workforce and that depressed wages as it increased supply. The actual work itself suffered too, as we all had to deal with burnt out healthcare workers with too many bills and not enough dollars. Even a pandemic barely hurt he business model (as far as I can tell from a quick googling).

But if workers start caring about the money more, then the wages will rise (hopefully), and that will attract better workers and not ones near the near of their ropes financially. We all will be better off. I think this goes for teachers too.

seanmcdirmid• 23 hours ago

I don’t understand how healthcare can get even more expensive without the system just utterly collapsing. That being said, we could definitely justify higher salaries with greater productivity (via automation), but the market tends to reward the capitalists for that instead of the workers. We really have to figure that out soon.

pseudohadamard• 14 hours ago

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).

VLM• 1 day ago

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.

ryathal• 1 day ago

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.

IAmBroom• 11 hours ago

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.

Amid nurse shortage, a university rolls out the welcome mat for men

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