Fun Male Nurse Facts You Might Not Know 😉
More and more men are today joining the ranks of male nurses in the medical field. Here are some little-known facts about male nurses. Did you know that:
• In third century Rome, groups of male nurses known as the Parabolani, provided care for sick and dying people on the great plain of Alexandria
• During the Crusades, male nurses comprised the Knights Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusalem, and were set up to help their sick and dying brethren who fought valiantly in the Crusades
• It hasn’t always been easy. In 1901 the United States military, which up until then had included male nurses, changed to only have women nurses. It was actually many years later, after the Korean War, that men were allowed back into nursing.
• Today, the chances of having a male nurse are five times greater in the military than in the civilian world.
• Nowadays the nursing population is between 6% and 7% male. World definitely needs more male nurses. Check male nurses statistics.
• James Derham was an African slave who saved enough money to buy his freedom. He worked as a male nurse in New Orleans in 1783 and eventually became a doctor. He was the first black nurse in history.
• Because of the massive nursing shortage in the 1980s and 1990s, more men became nurses during this time.
• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men make higher wages and male nurses earn more than female nurses do. Women make only about 86.6% of what male nurses bring in as nurses.
• Famous poet Walt Whitman was actually a male nurse. He served his nursing time in Washington, D.C. as a volunteer hospital nurse during the Civil War. He wrote down his experiences in nursing in the volume “Drumtaps” and also journaled extensively about it with two other poems entitled “Specimens” and “Collect”
So there you have it, some interesting facts about male nurses.