The purpose of the study was to explore the lived experiences of male nursing students and recent graduates of nursing school as related to their attraction to the profession, recruitment into a nursing school, retention and persistence toward attainment of a baccalaureate nursing degree. The participants in the study included male baccalaureate nursing students who were engaged in their last year of nursing school, and male recent graduates who successfully completed their baccalaureate nursing degree within the last three years. The participants were between 24 to 46 years of age. The study employed a phenomenological design. A semi-structured interview protocol was developed to conduct one-to-one interviews with six male nursing students and recent graduates regarding participants' perceptions of their lived experiences within their nursing schools and the profession. By understanding factors that influence male students' attraction to the profession, recruitment into a nursing school, and retention and persistence of male baccalaureate nursing students toward successful attainment of a nursing degree, recommendations for best practices and structural improvements within institutions of higher education can be used to mediate the nursing shortage by creating equity and access for gender inclusion in the profession.

In contemporary American society, the nursing profession is predominantly made up of white women. Currently, males make up only 6.8 percent of the three million nursing professionals in the U.S. and they are considered gender minorities within the nursing profession and within nursing education. As gender minorities, male students are identified as experiencing nursing programs and the practice of nursing differently than their female counterparts. The purpose of this single instrumental, within site case study was to explore the learning environment for male nursing students and to investigate the nature of the interactions between nursing faculty and male undergraduate students in a Pacific Northwest medical university nursing program. Data was collected in the educational setting through observations, participant interviews, and document analysis. In addition, this study used Kanter's theoretical framework of tokenism to uncover if male nursing students were perceived as tokens in the educational environment. The findings showed that the faculty-student interactions were largely positive; they also revealed that having other males in the class was an instrumental factor in their positive perception of their educational experience. However, the male nursing students also identified areas of discomfort in the educational setting, specifically when practicing clinical skills with female peers, feeling pressured to volunteer and to expose skin during in-class demonstrations, and anticipating that they would be excluded from certain clinical situations. This research indicated that gender differences are present within nursing education and contributed to instances of discomfort for male students. Specific barriers occurred most often when men engaged with female peers and were in clinical settings. These findings provide new insight into when and where men begin to experience gender barriers in the educational environment and are pertinent to understanding the educational environment for men in nursing. Recommendations specifically geared towards assisting students in their first term are suggested for nursing faculty and administrators to ensure that the learning environment is welcoming for men. These recommendations include consciously placing males together in cohort groups and in clinical experiences, reducing instances of visibility and pressure on men in the clinical setting, building faculty awareness of perceived and real barriers for men in the educational setting, and providing faculty with tools to assess and address barriers that are present in the classroom environment.

The Future of Nursing explores how nurses' roles, responsibilities, and education should change significantly to meet the increased demand for care that will be created by health care reform and to advance improvements in America's increasingly complex health system. At more than 3 million in number, nurses make up the single largest segment of the health care work force. They also spend the greatest amount of time in delivering patient care as a profession. Nurses therefore have valuable insights and unique abilities to contribute as partners with other health care professionals in improving the quality and safety of care as envisioned in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) enacted this year. Nurses should be fully engaged with other health professionals and assume leadership roles in redesigning care in the United States. To ensure its members are well-prepared, the profession should institute residency training for nurses, increase the percentage of nurses who attain a bachelor's degree to 80 percent by 2020, and double the number who pursue doctorates. Furthermore, regulatory and institutional obstacles-including limits on nurses' scope of practice-should be removed so that the health system can reap the full benefit of nurses' training, skills, and knowledge in patient care. In this book, the Institute of Medicine makes recommendations for an action-oriented blueprint for the future of nursing.

Men have worked in the nursing profession throughout history, yet, the stereotypes and gender bias that male nurses experience still permeates society today. Indications of these may be responsible for the relatively minimal growth in the percentage of males choosing nursing as a career. Studies on nurse educators' evaluative interactions and observations of male nursing students' performance have not included those in a clinical setting, a critical component of nursing education. No research has provided insight into the nurse educators' perceptions of male nursing students in these settings, although there is a plethora of literature focused on men in nursing. Thus, this study examined nurse educators' perceptions of male nursing students in the clinical setting utilizing a multicase study design. Results of this study noted four prominent themes related to nurse educators' perceptions: preconceived assumptions, the concept of caring, persisting gender stereotypes and the exploitation of physical strength. These findings indicate that nurse educators continue to perpetuate the lingering stereotypes and gender biases that have plagued males for decades. Implications for nursing education include engaging students in reciprocal dialogue, educating others about the differences in caring between genders, and critically reevaluating the curriculum in order to create a warm, fair, and educational environment that invites males into this profession.