Why are most nurses female?

I guess because of Covid (they had 800 Covid patients in the hospital at one point in the early months of this year ?) things may not be running as they usually would. She began her career weeks after the pandemic was declared so I imagine nothing has been as it would have been pre-pandemic.

I’ve never seen that system in operation SueDomin, the norm is for a ward to have an allocated staff team, with the same staff over the 24 hours, the majority of whom rotate, it’s not good practice for staff to always work nights because their skills become outdated when they don’t come into contact with the wider hospital teams, or do all the duties that day staff do. Every hospital is different though, it does sound dysfunctional to work like the nursing teams are where your daughter is working.

Where my dd has been working, it’s quite interesting how the nursing staff work. Contrary to what I’d have thought, the night staff are the ones who provide the stability. It was almost always nurses from the same pool of staff, while the day staff could be any-and-everyone. Sometimes they would do just one shift and never work again in that department. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for a nurse to go ‘cold’ into a ward and work, then have to move on for the next shift. They must have to be very adaptable.

I don’t think the situation is the same for doctors and nurses though SueDomin, although more of both would help of course. The doctors rotas are designed to have as many on duty in the daytime when all the support and diagnostic services are available, so they do have minimal staff on out of hours.

Ward nurses though have to provide consistent numbers for 24 hour cover, and having more staff would still require them to work shifts or there would be more than needed on some shifts and not enough on others. Also if a nurse works full time hours it would have to be on a shift basis or it would be unfair to others. It’s not easy.

Employing more staff would be a start, Casdon. My dd graduated as a medic last April and by July she was in sole charge of 200 surgical patients overnight. She could call on staff in other departments in a desperate emergency but my goodness, what a terrifying responsibility when you’re fresh out of uni at 24 years old.

I’m struggling to see a solution to the shift cover issues you describe SueDonim. Wards have to be covered by nurses 24 hours a day, so whatever way you cut it shifts aren’t all going to be child friendly. It’s a major problem I agree, but if the shifts were worked around the staff wishes it couldn’t work.

I was just impressed at these nurses taking control of their careers in a way the nurses going back in my family couldn't dream of.

When I trained starting 1974 there was only 1 male student. I think it was to do with many of the above comments. Nowadays the pay and level of responsibility expected for the rate of pay may put people off. Pay is less than teaching, police for similar experience. I know this from my own family's careers. I wanted to be a nurse as I wanted to look after people and a schoolfriend had her appendix out so was impressed by the care she had. When I trained most doctors were male - many very pompous I may add.

I think some of the problem for NHS nurses is the shifts they’re often scheduled to do. They’re not family-friendly, whereas with agency nursing you can pick and choose the shifts that fit in with your life.

Same applies to doctors. The shifts can be punishing - my dd recently worked 50 hours over 96 hours. Next week, she’s starting a new placement, begins at 8am, finishing at 1:30am next morning. I wouldn’t want to be the person who gets seen in the seventeenth hour on anyone’s shift. Some doctors choose locum work because again it offers more flexility and better pay.

The system is broken, really.

I'm just home from a hip replacement op in a private hospital. It was very well staffed. I enjoyed chatting to the nurses almost all of whom were from an agency, mostly long term. They all said they really liked the variety of work available through the agency but best of all they got three times the pay of NHS nurses (which they'd all been). Some travelled a long way to get to this hospital but they said they were given very good travel expenses.
It was all quite a surprise to me. They all seemed such well organised people making the most of their opportunities.
No shortage of nurses, just a shortage of NHS ones?

returned not retuned!

My dad was a nurse in the 1940s. That was where he met my mum. When they married he retuned to his engineering job as the pay for nursing wasn’t sufficient for the breadwinner when they started a family. He always looked back fondly on his nursing days and it would have remained his long term career if it wasn’t so poorly paid.

Back then the male nurses only worked on male wards whereas female nurses worked on all wards.

Mawbe, I am sorry to have seemed to dispute when I do in fact agree with you :

"It was that women were not deemed the intellectual equals of men"
I think what I intended was to enlarge on a point of view which interests me. I think what I can do in future is never to omit from my reply 'I agree' when I do agree.

Caleo Sat 24-Jul-21 11:42:45
MawBe, intellectual work is nearly always higher social status than manual work. Nurses are not and never have been expected to be as intellectual as doctors

Where did I ever suggest what you dispute?
It was that women were not deemed the intellectual equals of men

I started my midwifery training in 1978 and it was in the news that a London hospital had taken on 3 Male midwife students. My son had complex medical needs and his one to one went on to do his nursing training, I did suggest he might like midwifery, he was appalled

MawBe, intellectual work is nearly always higher social status than manual work. Nurses are not and never have been expected to be as intellectual as doctors. Until recently a nursing qualification was not accepted by the Open University to be a reason for not having to do an introductory course for a discipline.

There is also a long standing snobbery about mind's being superior to matter which feeds the superior status of the more intellectual professions. Professional football has broken the mould in that connection.

AGAA4

Some doctors still don't understand that nursing is a separate career and nurses are not their handmaidens.
My nurse D was in the middle of a procedure with a very sick patient when a doctor told her to get some notes he wanted. She told him where they were and to get them himself.

My mum was red cross in WW2 then went on to be SRN up to 1970s she used to tell us of the utter rudeness of some(most) doctors and the disgracefull bullying by consultants-on matrons staffs and sisters ....whenever got bullied......she said they thought she was tantamount to the woman who cleaned the loos! The attitudes changed when the influx of docs from commonwealth started.she said they were absolutely fantastic! Courteous, respectful and not afraid to explain procedures etc to the nursing staff. A few used to say "if you want a professional to take blood or give injections, ask a nurse!" They understood the value of their years of practical experience. Class system still in play a bit now. One consultant told me my rheumatoid arthritis was worsening, I corrected him saying it's osteoarthritis.he looked at me as if I'd farted in church!!! Then said "it's the same thing" (little big head) I walked out slammed door and got referred to a true professional who was gobsmacked when I told him about his 'colleague'

Chardy

It's badly paid (and exhausting work), so men don't want to do it.

I think this is most likely the likeliest reason historically. Pay not sufficient to keep a home and family together if the'wife' wasn't working.plus the nom 'nurse' it sounds intrinsically female! Is there a masculine equivalent? I bet loads of lads and guys secretly would have loved to be a nurse but in days past we all know the flack they'd get! Thankfully that's all but died out.

Some doctors still don't understand that nursing is a separate career and nurses are not their handmaidens.
My nurse D was in the middle of a procedure with a very sick patient when a doctor told her to get some notes he wanted. She told him where they were and to get them himself.

I always thought it peculiar that Mr Collins did not have the surname Bennet as the estate was entailed.

Are you aware of this website and its newsletters?

janeausten.co.uk/

The newsletters are full of advertisements for stuff but there are also articles. Lots to read and often very interesting.

MawBe

^Also traditionally most often women are held to be the workhorses while men give the orders and do the clever work. You can see this attitude also in the stories Jane Austen told about how women could not inherit entailed family money. Also in some of the Bronte's stories^

What?
Jane Austen did not tell stories she wrote novels in a period when (however regrettably) women did not have control of their own finances. ( Actually some could and did but that’s another matter.)
Estates were entailed not money. This was designed to limit the inheritance of (property) over a number of generations so that ownership remains within a particular family or group.
"her father's estate was entailed on a cousin"
As for your suggestion that women were held to be the workhorses while men give the orders etc- really?
Sadly as late as the 20 th century it was not a case of being regarded as “workhorses” but intellectually inferior to men - for instance women could study for degrees but despite passing university examinations, were not allowed to be awarded degrees until 1878 at University of London, 1895 at Durham, 1920 at Oxford, and 1948 at Cambridge.
So to go back to OP’s question - traditionally men who wanted to study medicine became doctors, women became nurses.
Thank goodness those days are gone.

I remember watching the start of the live broadcast of the Conservative Party conference on television about 1989 or 1990. There was a procedural bit about accepting some report or other and a lady had asked to speak. She was allowed to speak.
Many members of the Cabinet, including The Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, were sat ,on the stage, facing the audience.
The lady started to speak. Something like "Before you is our great leader ..." etc and on she went. Mrs Thatcher looked quite embarrassed by the esteem with which she was being spoken about.
Then came the punch line.
"But at the end of the financial year her earnings have to be declared on her husband's tax return".
It was changed to separate taxation for married women within a year.
Up until as recently as 1990 if too much tax had been charged to a woman at her employment, the government sent a cheque for the refund to her husband not to her!

ElderlyPerson 'Why are most nurses female?' - simple, just look at the pay and conditions!

Also traditionally most often women are held to be the workhorses while men give the orders and do the clever work. You can see this attitude also in the stories Jane Austen told about how women could not inherit entailed family money. Also in some of the Bronte's stories

What?
Jane Austen did not tell stories she wrote novels in a period when (however regrettably) women did not have control of their own finances. ( Actually some could and did but that’s another matter.)
Estates were entailed not money. This was designed to limit the inheritance of (property) over a number of generations so that ownership remains within a particular family or group.
"her father's estate was entailed on a cousin"
As for your suggestion that women were held to be the workhorses while men give the orders etc- really?
Sadly as late as the 20 th century it was not a case of being regarded as “workhorses” but intellectually inferior to men - for instance women could study for degrees but despite passing university examinations, were not allowed to be awarded degrees until 1878 at University of London, 1895 at Durham, 1920 at Oxford, and 1948 at Cambridge.
So to go back to OP’s question - traditionally men who wanted to study medicine became doctors, women became nurses.
Thank goodness those days are gone.

I believe and hope that proper hospital decor is all you describe, and subtly more than that.

For instance I include language in "decor". The language that staff use to patients is not the same as the staff use in the pub or with their spouses. Staff , even volunteers, should convey efficiency, respectfulness, and dignity when they talk to patients. I don't mean they must not tell jokes, but they need to hold on to what rightly gives them their authority .

Visual decor besides diversional stuff like plants and pictures, should reflect the hospital ethos of cleanliness and efficiency, as these reassure patients.

I do agree that colours have immediate psychological effects on people, and I an sure hospital planners are aware of this.

I believe and hope that proper hospital decor is all you describe, and subtly more than that.

For instance I include language in "decor". The language that staff use to patients is not the same as the staff use in the pub or with their spouses. Staff , even volunteers, should convey efficiency, respectfulness, and dignity when they talk to patients. I don't mean they must not tell jokes, but they need to hold on to what rightly gives them their authority .

Visual decor besides diversional stuff like plants and pictures, should reflect the hospital ethos of cleanliness and efficiency, as these reassure patients.

I do agree that colours have immediate psychological effects on people, and I an sure hospital planners are aware of this.