Thanks so much for your comment, and I am painfully aware of the noise issues. Hopefully if you look at some of the newer versions you will see the sound and video quality improving. Looking back at some of the first episodes, which I filmed with my laptop, the sound is also an issue. You can actually hear the laptop fan. However, I have since invested into a better camera and microphone.

Glad you did get something out of the video despite the technical areas that could be greatly improved. Thanks for your patience, and I’ll do my best to make sure future episodes get better and better.

Thanks again,
Rob

As a Wound Care Specialist, I don’t really experience a lot of gender issues. I am sensitive to the needs of the patients and if its ever an issue, I make it a non-issue and make the patient feel comfortable by providing or asking for a female peer.

With regards to keeping awareness of gender dynamics in the workplace, I think its improving. Most facilities typically touch on it with orientation. It may be good to touch on the topic in discussion periodically to improve upon what the industry has achieved already. Forums such as this or a blog or user generated video are a great way to bring awareness. New Media and Web 2.0 can be a catalyst for such discussions. Great job for doing so Robert!

The gender split in the hospital which I work is a good question. I see more male nurses in the workplace but it still is dominated by females. I find it particularly interesting to see the split and ratio among the different units. OBGYN is always female. ER, ICU, Behavioral Health have more male nurses than the other units like Med-Surg, Telemetry etc. I wonder why?

As a Wound Care Specialist, I get the benefit of visiting all of the units and nursing homes. I have the opportunity to see things on a broad spectrum and have a “litmus test” taste of the mix.

Perhaps because I entered nursing as a second-career, I never noticed much of a difference in how I was treated – for the most part. My sense is that men in nursing have had an increasingly more receptive treatment over the last several decades, much of which owes to general societal changes in gender equality (which continues to need change).

Dr. Evans made an interesting comment about how nursing schools don't spend much time addressing the gender issues. Looking back, there could have been more emphasis on how differently men and woman (not to broad brush here) differ in how they interact with others. I know for myself, I entered ICU nursing not because I didn't want to 'care' for my patients, but I was heavily interested in the technical characteristics of critical care. To what extent that's gender-related matter is up for debate. It certainly is worth further study.

There's a lot of food-for-thought in this video, so I hope it gets more traction. It's certainly in our interest to have more men enter nursing, but only if the entries are done for the right reasons.