Male Nurses Buck Stereotype

Isaac Smith, Eliseo Bunag and Stewart Mortensen have a lot more in common than being male nurses working for the Harris County Hospital District. The three credit their professional growth to the encouraging environment available at the hospital district, the state’s largest public health care system.

Male nurses, unlike actor Ben Stiller’s depiction of a male nurse in the movie "Meet the Parents," merit serious respect. While the profession remains dominated by women, men are realizing the potential of a nursing career.

Harris County Hospital Distric employs nearly 1,000 full-time licensed vocational nurses and registered nurses to staff its 15 hospital and health care centers throughout the county. The percentage of male nurses is still quite small at about 7 percent.

That wouldn’t have mattered to Isaac Smith.

"I was a medical corpsman for the U.S. Army in Vietnam, so continuing with a medical career seemed a good career choice," he said. "The fact that nurses are mainly women didn’t bother me at all. I knew this would be a great challenge for me."

Smith wasn’t a trendsetter, but he was among the first male nurses at Harris County Hospital District. Nearly 32 years after beginning at the hospital district as an LVN, Smith is now an RN and nurse manager of one of Ben Taub General Hospital’s busiest units, the medicine intensive care unit. The 16-bed unit is always filled with patients suffering a variety of ailments including cancer, diabetes, and heart, liver and lung disease.

"I’ve been in MICU for about 17 years, all of it as nurse manager, and I really enjoy my job," he said. "I guess that’s where I’m meant to be."

Barbara Reece, associate administrator and chief nursing offer at Harris County Hospital District’s Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital, cites the hospital district’s tuition-reimbursement and training programs with encouraging fledgling nurses to their full potential.

Eliseo Bunag is a good example of this philosophy. He came to the hospital district in 1982 after being recruited from the Philippines. Though credentialed as a registered nurse there, he had to start over in the United States.

"It was very challenging. I had to adapt to a new environment and basically start over from letter ‘A,’" he said. "I knew it was worth it because nursing is what I wanted to do."

Bunag began his Harris County Hospital District career at Ben Taub, where for nearly 16 years he worked in a variety of positions including staff nurse and nursing director of pediatric and neonatal intensive care units. In 1998, he accepted the position of nursing supervisor of the hospital district’s Ripley Health Center as one of two male nurse supervisors of the 11 health centers operated by the district.

His nursing experience and previous work in quality management were later instrumental in the creation of Gulfgate Health Center, a replacement facility for the overcrowded Ripley. Since its opening in 2000, Gulfgate has grown to accommodate about 6,000 patient visits a month.

"HCHD provides nurses the ability to work in intensive care areas, primary care facilities and trauma care areas," said Dr. Mary Holt-Ashley, associate administrator and chief nursing officer at Ben Taub. "We have an environment rich in diversity and variety where we can guarantee nurses will become expert clinicians if they apply themselves."

Stewart Mortensen began at Harris County Hospital District 1996 as a clerk. However, that job was short lived. Inspired in part by his mother, an RN, Mortensen saw nursing as a stable and lucrative career. He attended nursing school and continued his work at LBJ. After receiving his degree, he left for a job opportunity in the private sector. He returned after seeing that the hospital district offered better fringe benefits and a more exciting clinical experience. He’s now a nurse in the hospital’s pediatric emergency center.

"Being a nurse may not seem like the most manly profession, but it’s very rewarding," he said. "I enjoy helping kids through their medical needs."

The three nurses urge anyone who likes challenges and face-to-face time with patients to consider a nursing career.

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