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Nursing a new career (continued)
Statewide program
Since its inception in 1937, the MSU College of Nursing has been a multi-campus program so that it can make the best use of educational and clinical resources in the state, Shreffler-Grant said. The college' s administration is located on the main campus of MSU in Bozeman, where most undergraduate students complete lower division nursing requirements, taking such courses as health policy, politics, leadership and management. Students then move to one of five campuses, located in Bozeman, Billings, Great Falls, Kalispell and Missoula, to complete their upper division clinical courses.
| "It is wonderful that men are rediscovering this field. It is full of opportunity, and it is important that the health care work force reflect the population for whom we care. Gender diversity is as
important as ethnic and racial diversity." —Elizabeth Nichols, College of nursing dean
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Elizabeth Nichols, dean of MSU' s College of Nursing, points out that actually, males have had a long history in the field.
"Men have had an important place in nursing for centuries," Nichols said. "Nursing was a male occupation as far back as the Byzantine Empire in 330 A.D. More recently, men provided nursing services during the Crusades, the U.S. Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War.
"It is wonderful that men are rediscovering this field," Nichols added. "It is full of opportunity, and it is important that the health care work force reflect the population for whom we care. Gender diversity is as important as ethnic and racial diversity."
A comfortable minority
Jason Myers, who is in his second semester of the program, said he is drawn to nursing because of its reputation.
"It' s a well-respected profession," said Myers, 29. "Anytime you hear someone say they' re a nurse, they usually say it with pride. And when I told people I was thinking about going into nursing, they would tell me about people they knew who were nurses. They appreciated them. That really helped."
As far as being a male nurse in a field that has stereotypically been regarded as female territory, Geiser, Kurz, Mikkelsen and Myers all say it is essentially a non-issue for them.
Part of that may be attributable to what Shreffler-Grant calls an unusual amount of maturity among the men in the MSU program.
"I think men know coming into nursing that they' ll be in the minority," she said. "So there' s a certain amount of self-selection. They' re probably more mature and broad-minded men."
Mikkelsen, for one, is comfortable being one of just five males in his class of 24 students. He said the entire group is tight-knit, often socializing outside of the program and helping to celebrate each other' s birthdays.
"Throughout history, there have definitely been both male and female nurses," he added. "I feel like this society has totally accepted men as nurses now."
> Fall 2008 Contents
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