Many male nursing students dropping out

HospitalHospital. Photo: NTB SCANPIX

Four out of ten male nursing students do not complete their studies. Female dominance in the profession creates challenges in programs of study and practice, says researcher.

Runar Bakken, who teaches at the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences in University College Southeast Norway, told NRK that although the boys know they are in the minority when they begin their studies, the female dominance is much larger than the male students expect.
– It will be a greater or lesser shock for them to experience how dominated the study is by females and a female perspective. Because the teachers are women, most of the supervisors of the places where they will get their working practice are women, who are not used to teach and give instructions to  men. The whole syllabus is steeped in the thought that it is women who will carry out the discipline, he said.
He says the only examples of men in the syllabus are descriptions of situations where it can be problematic with a male nurse, for example by intimate wash of female patients.
The amount of male students dropping out worries  Eli Gunhild By, leader of the Norwegian Nurses Association.
– It’s serious, it’s not good. We’re very concerned that the studies should be welcoming to both sexes. We are facing major challenges in the health sector, and if we are to be able to recruit enough staff  it is absolutely vital that we manage to reduce the dropout rate, says City.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today