Abstract

The American Journal of Nursing (AJN) has been published continuously since 1900. As such, it provides a unique opportunity to analyze the social issues that have surrounded nursing as well as the professional issues that have been important to nurses for more than 100 years.

Research Question: What topics related to men nurses have been published in the AJN during the last 100 years?

Methodology: All issues of the AJN, including all editorial content, are available electronically. Using a variety of key words such as male nurses, men nurses, men and nursing, all articles, editorials, letters to the editor and news items in the AJN that referred to men nurses from its inception in 1900 to the year 2000 were printed and analyzed for content.

Theoretical Framework: Historical research is often viewed using a social or cultural frame of reference. Using a social framework allowed the researcher to interpret content in the AJN from a perspective that included the events that influenced society at that time. Additionally, a cultural framework provided an opportunity to view the content in the broader context of the cultural norms of the various historical periods from 1900 to 2000.

Findings: Exclusion of men from the military nurse corps and appropriate roles for men nurses are two of the topics that were especially prevalent prior to 1960. More recent topics included the interaction of male nursing students with patients, especially in maternity nursing.

Author Details

Dr. Susan LaRocco is Dean and Professor of the School of Nursing at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh NY. She became a nursing educator after many years in a variety of leadership positions in hospitals in Boston, New York, and Connecticut. She has published extensively, including in the American Journal of Nursing, Journal of Clinical Nursing, and Nursing Management. In 2014, she was inducted as a Fellow in the National Academies of Practice. Dr LaRocco spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in the Middle East, teaching doctoral students at the University of Jordan in Amman. Her major research interest is men in nursing, in particular the graduates of the Alexian Brothers Hospital School of Nursing in Chicago, the last all-male school of nursing.

Sigma Membership

Mu Epsilon, Theta at-Large

Lead Author Affiliation

Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, New York, USA

Type

Presentation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Other

Research Approach

Other

Keywords:

Male Nurses, Content Analysis, American Journal of Nursing, AJN

Conference Name

AAMN Annual Conference

Conference Host

American Association for Men in Nursing

Conference Location

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Conference Year

2009

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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Review Type

Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host

Acquisition

Self-submission

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Men nurses in the American Journal of Nursing: The first 100 years

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

The American Journal of Nursing (AJN) has been published continuously since 1900. As such, it provides a unique opportunity to analyze the social issues that have surrounded nursing as well as the professional issues that have been important to nurses for more than 100 years.

Research Question: What topics related to men nurses have been published in the AJN during the last 100 years?

Methodology: All issues of the AJN, including all editorial content, are available electronically. Using a variety of key words such as male nurses, men nurses, men and nursing, all articles, editorials, letters to the editor and news items in the AJN that referred to men nurses from its inception in 1900 to the year 2000 were printed and analyzed for content.

Theoretical Framework: Historical research is often viewed using a social or cultural frame of reference. Using a social framework allowed the researcher to interpret content in the AJN from a perspective that included the events that influenced society at that time. Additionally, a cultural framework provided an opportunity to view the content in the broader context of the cultural norms of the various historical periods from 1900 to 2000.

Findings: Exclusion of men from the military nurse corps and appropriate roles for men nurses are two of the topics that were especially prevalent prior to 1960. More recent topics included the interaction of male nursing students with patients, especially in maternity nursing.