Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Mariah
Taylor, assistant editor, and I'm thrilled to be
interviewing Karen Cox, president of Chamberlain University, on
the podcast today. Doctor Cox, thank you so
much for joining me. I am so excited
to get your insights on the trends around
men in nursing and what they're doing in
the field. But before we dive in, I'd
love for you to introduce yourself and tell
us a little bit about your background.
Thanks, Marielle. I'm excited about this topic as
well.
So I am president of Chamberlain
University, as you mentioned, have been in that
role for 6 years. But prior to that,
I spent 24 years as a chief nursing
officer
and chief operating officer at the Children's Hospital
in Kansas City. So have a
Hospital in Kansas City.
So have a a mix of service and,
academic background.
And and importantly, I think, yes, I started
my career as a licensed practical nurse, so
I'm someone who understands kind of the the
multiple pathways that you get to nursing.
And that's really, I think,
meaningful when we talk about men and how
they end up in nursing.
So, doctor Cox, as president, what are some
of the demographics of nursing at Chamberlain in
Wogan?
So when you think about,
men in nursing,
Mariah, at Chamberlain,
as of our
last fall,
we had about a little over 4200
students that were men enrolled,
which is significant number.
And we awarded
18
1823 nursing degrees and certificates
to men,
in f y
20 24.
Over the
past 4 past 3 years,
Chamberlain has awarded
over 45 100 nursing degrees and certificates to
men.
So it pretty significant. And then,
that includes both pre and post licensure students.
And at Walden,
for post licensure students, they had over 211
100 men
enrolled in the same time period,
and they awarded 729
nursing degrees and certificates
to men,
in fiscal year 2024.
So pretty significant. And
one of our our objectives at Chamberlain is
to continue to grow that number,
because
as the largest school of nursing in the
country, when we do things, it makes an
outsized impact, and we're hoping to have a
truly outsized impact on the number of men
in nursing.
Excellent.
Let's dive into that. What factors do you
think are driving the increase of men in
nursing, and how have you seen those trends
evolve over the years?
A couple of things.
One is,
you know, nursing has become
a profession
since the pandemic
that people have really started to understand the
importance
of the role
in a very different way.
And
while it's always been the case that nurses,
men or women, nurses have to be
very compassionate,
very much a right brain,
able to connect with people,
able to develop therapeutic
and and
relate in, individual relationships
with people
of of all kinds,
not just the people they know. And so
that's really something everyone understands,
but I don't think it was fully appreciated
till the pandemic
how much,
nurses have to know the science and, you
know, the critical judgment skills that they have
and how much they work fairly independently
and and making,
important decisions
in care that's provided.
And so I think having that understanding that
it's not just what people might connotate as
a something women are really good at and
men aren't, which, by the way, isn't true.
But they they just that stereotype.
And so
I think the people that have really,
stepped out into nursing full force have been
people with military backgrounds.
So for the last 20, 25 years,
people who are men and women coming out
of the service, who are either medics or
were,
already,
registered nurses
come into the civilian workforce.
And those men that come in, the people
see them and they understand,
you know, what the impact of what they
can do, looks like. The other group
that really has,
embraced
nursing are are people that have been first
responders.
So which is
men and women, but men who are first
responders,
who are on,
ambulances, who work in emergency rooms, they see
what nurses do. And so, again, they understand
how much of an impact nurses make in
all the all parts of providing health care.
Excellent.
What kind of trends are you seeing in
the career path that these men take? Are
they gravitating
towards any kind of specific specialty or leadership
roles? And how can the industry retain that
talent?
Typically,
in the in the past,
men have been more
drawn to what I would call critical care.
So,
intensive care units, emergency
rooms, perhaps
perioperative or operating room settings.
And that but that's continuing to change. For
example, when I
worked at the a children's hospital here in
Kansas City,
there were at least 50 men who were
nurses there
in many different specialties.
So it it's broadening out.
Also, men are
more interest more likely to think about becoming
a
CRNA or a certified registered nurse anesthetist,
which requires
nursing
experience as a
in critical care for 2 years and then
taking that,
master's program.
But the other thing that we really notice
is men end up in leadership roles at,
really, at a higher percentage than women. Now
they're they only make up 10 to 12%
of but
they're
disproportionately higher percentages in leadership.
And there if you look at chief nursing
officers across the country,
there's a fair there's a higher proportion of
men than just 10%.
That's fascinating.
What kind of unique barriers or challenges do
these students or nurses face both in education
and workforce?
The first is really how they're
viewed, how nursing is viewed, and there's still
some of that
belief out there that nursing is really just
as a very female and or,
subservient
profession,
and nothing could be further than the truth.
You can ask physicians
about the importance of nurses in all aspects
of of health care, but particularly in the,
inpatient setting. So there's still some of that,
out there.
And and so that's something
people face when they say, oh, I'm gonna
I'm going to nursing I'm a man, and
I'm going to nursing school. So sometimes
there's,
hesitancy there, and and they feel
that somehow that's,
not a profession that men
should or would be attracted to.
The other barrier really is,
patients and making sure patients understand
that they're they're nurses, they're student nurses. And
and, usually,
those,
misperceptions
or
misunderstandings
about about men in nursing goes right away
as soon as they start interacting with
these men who
are just extraordinary
nursing students and become extraordinary
nurses. Probably one of the most exciting things
that happened for the profession
is for for the first time, the 2
largest,
the 2 most influential
nursing professional organizations
in the last couple of years both had
men
as leaders for the first time. And so
doctor Ernest Grant was the,
president of the American Nurses Association,
and doctor,
Kenneth White
was president of the American Academy of Nursing.
And that, I think, really signaled
the changes,
you know, from a at the
highest professional level,
what it was that men were able to
accomplish
and that they were here to stay as
leaders within our profession.
So fascinating.
What do you think health care organizations can
do to help address some of those barriers
and challenges?
I think, Marie, one of the things they
can do
is highlight men
that are in nursing roles within the organization.
And you can do that in a variety
of ways. You can do that through Daisy
recognition
awards. You can do that through
just, you know, promoting stories within the organization,
but also outside outside
the organization. So when there's an opportunity to
talk about a particular patient
care issue, that that you seek out the
men who are in nursing roles to be
those spokespeople as much as possible.
Again, just to normalize
it. And I know that the it they
also there's
a association
of men in nursing,
and I think having a strong
connection to that as a health system is
really
important. Again, it just shows that
there's,
a
desire to have men come into the field.
And, you know, the most important thing about
all of this is
there aren't, number 1, enough nurses.
And if we only go to the usual
suspects
of people who have typically become registered nurses,
we're not going to solve for that problem.
If you think about the fact that we
have 10 to 12%
of nurses are men,
if you increase that to 20%
over a 5 year period,
that alone would would dramatically
impact for the positive,
the shortage of nurses because they're net new.
They're not the people who typically would have
gone into nursing.
Absolutely.
And as we all know, the nursing shortage
has been going on for a while now.
So what do you think systems can do
to become more attractive to men in nursing?
I think the first part is really backing
up from the the point of where people
are thinking about what their next what their
career is gonna be. And there's 2 real
quick entry points that I think are important
to consider.
1 is high school students. And,
you know, you don't
attract
men,
young men who are in high school into
nursing by sending
a representative
out from a school
that is a,
you know,
22 year old young woman.
You have to show that it's like anything
else. You have to see yourself.
And so the that that's the first step
is having outreach
where you're showing
opportunities
and they see it and they can see
themselves doing that.
The second is really in 2nd career.
Oh, you know, I I've talked to enough
of our men who are in our nursing
programs
who have said, you know, they get into
what was a stereotypical
education
and career for a man, and they just
found it kind of empty.
They didn't feel like they were making connections
with people. They weren't impacting
society in the way that they had hoped,
and they saw nursing as a way to
do that.
You know, when I think about,
how people,
men and women, end up in nursing,
just overall, there are a couple of ways
to look at it. So I cannot remember,
and this is true, I can't remember
being a person
as a as a 3 or 4 year
old. I can't remember ever not knowing
that I wanted to be a nurse. So
it's it's it's part of me. It's been
a part of me. It was going to
be a part of me. I either was
going to be. I was in school or
I became a nurse.
So there was just for whatever reason that
was
I was attracted to that.
Men come at it from usually a different
place.
It's it's later in life, as I mentioned,
and it's it's more about the opportunities
that they have, the potential leadership,
potential that exists,
and it's about making a difference
in a in a different way. So it's
not so much it you can't really go
for for the it's a calling or it's
just something you've always wanted to be. It's
why now and why me and what is
it that this has to offer?
Excellent. This has been such an amazing and
informative discussion.
I wanna just thank you again for being
on the podcast with me today.
Of course. Thank you. And I and I
look forward to watching the continued increase of
men coming into our profession. It will only
make us stronger.