�HE Nursing�

Abdul Qayum Chitrali

Nursing has long been considered a female dominated profession in our society. Literature also supports this by providing ample evidence that nursing belongs to females. Nursing literature has left no stone unturned in addressing females as care givers in the form of nurses and males as passive individuals in need of care as patients. But history shows that males have also made significant contribution to the nursing profession and, in fact, it has been proven that nurses at the beginning were males. (David & Bartfay, 2001). The credit of female dominancy in the profession, which began in the 19th century, goes to great nursing theorist Florence Nightingale. She laid the foundation of modern nursing and her schools denied access to males. (David & Bartfay). Had her schools been open for males, the nursing community could have been different today. Males� entry into nursing restarted in late 20th century and still continues to rise, but males are still underrepresented in the profession.

The society holds strong negative attitude towards males as nurses. People believe that nursing suits for female gender because of their (females) caring nature. The people also believe that males can not perform effectively in nursing because they are not caring, and therefore, can�t flourish well in this profession. Males are expected to perform tasks that require energy, power, aggression, and autonomy which the society believes lack in nursing. In fact, males do not join the profession because of the negative attitude of the society, female dominancy, lack of respect and lack of role models. It is due to this fear of unacceptability in the society, that males are reluctant to join nursing. Society is probably not aware of the true essence of nursing and it still considers nurses as handmaids of physicians, which is not true, and therefore, it is not comfortable with males as nurses.

Male nursing, which at one time was thought to be unrealistic, has now become a usual phenomenon. Just like males can join medicine, engineering, architecture or any other field, they can also join nursing. The profession started attracting more males and nursing schools have welcomed males as opposed to Nightingale�s schools. The lesson has emerged now that female gender is not a criterion to join nursing. Today, though small in number, males are being represented in different nursing specialties like critical care, emergency, forensic division and even in gender sensitive areas like labour and delivery, to name a few. In today�s world, males comprise a significant percentage of the nursing staff providing their services in various areas of health care system; but the ratio is still too small as compared to females.

Today, nursing has become a viable profession for males, particularly at a time when the whole world is facing acute shortage of nurses. The situation is worse in Pakistan as compared to other parts of the world and the nurse-patient ratio of 1:5000 well depicts its magnitude (Upvall, et al., 1999). In this situation, males can make bright career in different nursing specialties and can flourish well, particularly in our country. Nursing is now an equally suitable profession to both genders. Being a male nurse myself, I can definitely claim that there is nothing in nursing which is more favorable for females or which can hinder males from practicing. During my experience, I have never felt that my gender hinders my learning or practice. It is true that there are certain limitations to practice and those are applicable for both genders and not only for males. Due to cultural constraints, males are not allowed to practice obstetrics and gynecology and that is acceptable. Otherwise males can perform their responsibilities in equally good manner as females; rather males can outplay females in certain areas of practice like emergency, surgery and critical care. Studies have proven that males can be more caring than females and that is a basic requirement for nursing (Cude, 2004). I am optimistic about it that someday sooner or later the idea of joining nursing as a career will prevail among the younger generation and there will be a significant proportion of males in the nursing community.

It is well said that diversity is strength. Male-female diversification in nursing will give strength and power to the profession and will make it more visible and will ultimately enhance its image. More male entry into nursing will also compensate the worldwide shortage of nurses which is a global problem today. If we want to improve our health statistics and want to be included in the list of healthy nations, then we have to increase the number of nurses in our health care and that is only possible when we recruit more males in the nursing division. With increased number of males, the societal negative attitude will also change into a positive and a receptive one. It is a fact that society doesn�t welcome males as nurses, and therefore, male nurses have to work hard to portray the true picture of nursing to the community and convince people to change their pessimistic vision of the nursing profession. Society also needs to understand the true picture of modern nursing and should encourage their young males to join nursing, otherwise a day will come when we will be left with no options except to say, �sorry�. Therefore, I believe, it is very important that we all decide and plan together to strengthen our future nursing force and tackle the problem of critical shortage of nurses in an appropriate way.