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University Daily Kansan, November 19, 1981
Med Center wants to recruit more male nursing students
By JoLYNNE WALZ Staff Reporter
About 10 years ago, two nursing students walked into a female patient's room at the University of Kansas Medical Center to help her with the
"I don't want any men in here," the patient said.
"Are you a doctor?" the patient asked one of the nursing students.
THE STUDENT, Thomas Bettis, was undaunted and continued on in the profession to become the Med Center's nursing services counselor.
But the scenario is a common one.
Ten years ago, male nurses were a rarity, and they still are. However, Chancellor Gene A. Budig recently asked Med Center nursing school administrators to actively recruit male students.
One of those administrators, Rita Clifford, director of the department of student affairs-surgeon, said that it was too early to say exactly how the Med Center would recruit more men, but she thought it was a good idea.
"Women have been having more freedom to choose careers on a non-sexist basis, and men are beginning to have that choice too," she said
ALTHOUGH THERE is no strong national effort to attract men to nursing. Clifford said, there is an intense need for women in the sexes because of the nursery shortage.
But it's not only administrators who now like the idea of male nurses.
Patients, too, are getting used to the idea.
Claat Stroud, a Med Center patient, said that he preferred a male nurse but that there were none on his floor.
"I'd like to promote male nurses," he said. "In the hospital in Salina they have male nurses on every floor. I liked seeing them," he added. "We wanted to look at the pretty girls."
Jim Ford, Kansas City junior, and a nursing student, stopped by for a visit. He leaned over Stroud and checked his blood pressure.
"Do you know what your blood pressure is normally?" he asked. "It seems fine now. Are you taking any medication to control your blood pressure?"
FORD SAID that he used to work as a student nurse on Stroud's floor but that he switched to the emergency room recently.
"I wanted to go into nursing or a school so I didn't have a whole lot of money," he said.
When he told his family and friends he was going to be a nurse, they accepted his decision easily. Ford said. Several years ago, though, people might not have been as tolerant about his career choice, he said.
"The old stigma is disappearing," Ford said. "But oftentimes in a clinical area someone will say something about the patient, but I don't say, 'I'm not a doctor, I'm a nurse.'"
Families and patients are often surprised to find that the nurse is a man, Ford said, but when they get used to the idea they think it is innovative.
Children especially like male nurses, he said, showing their interest by asking questions about nursing and why he chose that profession.
MICKY SMEJAK1, registered nurse, is another man who chose nursing for his profession. He graduated from the College of Health Sciences three years ago and is already a head nurse of the Med Center's operating staff.
Like Ford, he also considered going to medical school. But he decided on nursing because a nursing degree took work and half the time of a medical degree.
"When I first started working here, a lot of the girls weren't talking to me because they thought we was making them. When I first became the man," Smekal said. "That's not true."
People started whispering again, he said, when he was quickly promoted to head nurse. Smelik said he was promoted, however, because he had better academic qualifications than anybody else.
"I was one of only three people who had a bachelor's in nursing," he said. "The rest had associate degree or two years of college credits that offered three-year degrees."
Once he proved that he could handle his job well, the women he worked with started to him again, he said.
ULTIMATELY, Smejkal said, he intends to work as a nursing or hospital administrator.
Thembus Betts, registered nurse and Med Center nursing services counselor, is already a nursing administrator at the Med Center.
He has gone far since he was ordered out of the patient's room 10 years ago when his brain was removed.
When he started nursing school, Bettis said, people didn't accept male nurses as easily as they do now. Then many Vietnam veterans who had been to college would become nurses, so there were five or six other men in his nursing class.
"What do most men say when you ask
them what they're going to do?" he asked.
"I'm going to be a doctor.' I'm going to be an engineer.' I'm going to be a nurse.' "Say what?' "
When he first entered nursing school, Bettis said, he wanted to be a nurse-asthetist because they are powerful and tough. He says they make more money than other nurses.
EVEN TODAY, he said, most men entering nursing school plan on being nurse-anaesthetists.
"They could tell the docs when they could cut and when the patients are under," he said.
However, while he was in school,
Bettis said, he discovered he liked
working with people too much to work
with them only when they were asleep.
He became a psychiatric nurse instead, and in three years he had become head nurse in the Med Center's psychiatric department.
"Men are often put into positions of authority, and they move up pretty quickly," he said. "I don't mean to sound like a male chauvinist, but it's women who promote the men in nursing."
Although being a man helped Betis' upward mobility in nursing, he said, it also had its drawbacks.
"It's that inside-the-belfast talk that sometimes messes up the mind," he said, "Nursing isn't usually one of the options open to men. Lots of people think that if a man wants to be a nurse or a woman, his女人. He's got to be a super rayw."
BUT THE BENEFITS outweigh the drawbacks for men in nursing, Betis said. Because of the nursing shortage, jobs are easy to find.
Although many other professions pay better than nursing, he said, the low pay nurses earn doesn't bother him even though he has a family to support.
Bettis said that he had two sons, ages 11 and 13
Micky Smejkal, head nurse at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and an assistant gather unused surgical lea
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Thursday, Nov. 19
Xala
A film by Ouzmanne Sembene, the adult director of world reputation. The Arabic movie follows a modern Senegalense businessman who is forced to work for a cure. A sardine, sardonic comedy (12) by Danny Curtis.
Friday, Nov. 20
Resurrection
(1980)
Elien Burstyn stars as a woman who chronicly dead for a moment but comes alive in this fine drama, written by Lewis John Carrino (The Great Santini) and by Sarah Jane Bronx (the Bronx). "An extremely good film of a quality seen all too rarely, the perils of overburdened characters on Tuesday. October Weekly. Plus: Wilt Rogers in Big Moments from Little Pictures. (10/31/20)
Used Cars
One of the funniest comedies in a long time, from the team that did I Wana you to sell me at your young used car salesman (Kurt Russell) anything to keep his boss's lot ahead of his boss's brother's lot. With Jack Riding Hood (11/17 min.) Color: black Riding Hood. (11/17 min.) Color: black
Alice's Restaurant
Arthur Pentin's comic account of Alice and her restaurant, and a draft easion and Alice's friends, and Anto Gulfo who wrote the song and star. A funny tale in the saline saline with Pat Quintz James Broderick, (111 mm) Color, 128 Midnight.
Unless otherwise noted, all film will be shown at Woodford Auditorium in the Kansas Union. Midnight movies are available at the SUA Center; films are available at the SUA office, Kansas Union 8th Level, Kansas Union. Informe- ment about no smoking or refreshments allowed.