Heralded nurse knows his calling

It doesn't happen much, but every now and then, a would-be client will decline Gary Springer's services.

"Well, no thank you," they'll say. "Send somebody else."

Source: Dallasnews.com

The numbers are changing, but in his profession, Springer is still in the lopsided minority. He's among the estimated 9 percent of registered nurses in this country who are men.

That patients can still be a little taken aback is perhaps reflected in the stubborn persistence of the counterintuitive occupational descriptive "male nurse," long after we have discarded such unnecessary epithets as "man teacher" or "lady doctor."

Even in these ostensibly enlightened times, there's still a little bit of a gee-whiz, girl-on-the-wrestling-team novelty about a man working as a nurse.

This novelty was about a hundred times more pronounced in 1974, when Springer was one of eight men in the graduating class of Baylor University's nursing school, the first to include a purposely recruited male contingent. At that time, it was estimated that less than 1 percent of the nation's nurses were men, a statistic that hadn't changed since about 1900.

"There's still just something about the word nurse that makes people think, female," said Springer, 58. "Culturally, we're still stereotyped."

A few minutes' conversation with Springer, who possesses the sort of reassuring unflappability that gets anxious patients through rough moments, is all it has ever taken to get reluctant clients to change their minds.

"I'd say, 'Let me talk to them first,' " he said. "I'd tell them, 'I am very, very interested in your getting better and in your health care needs.' If I had that chance to talk with the patient first, I don't remember ever being rejected."

In his nearly four-decade career, Springer has worked at the VA hospital and for the nonprofit Visiting Nurse Association, where he now works with hospice patients. He makes home visits to critically ill patients, as well as scheduling a team of his colleagues after determining when visits are needed.

Last week, he was honored by a statewide association of home-care and hospice organizations for "distinguished service in the nursing arts." As nurses go, this one clearly knows what he's doing.

Springer said he didn't encounter hostility from his female classmates in nursing school, even though he began studying years before the landmark Mississippi University for Women vs. Hogan decision, widely regarded as opening the doors of previously women-only nursing programs to men.

Perhaps that's because Springer's choice was pragmatic, not political. He had always contemplated a hands-on service career, perhaps as a social worker or physical therapist. When he landed a scholarship for nursing school, he jumped at the chance.

"My parents were very supportive," he said. His father, a Baptist minister, assured him: "It's an honorable profession."

He quickly found out what generations of his female colleagues had learned: Nursing is extremely demanding, profoundly rewarding work.

"Women in this profession haven't been threatened. They realize this is very difficult work," Springer said.

The stereotypes come from outside the profession – the selfless Victorian-era ministering angel; Ken Kesey's Nurse Ratched, the archetypal hospital ward-boss battle-ax.

In recent years, Springer has heard those once-ubiquitous dopey remarks less and less: "Why not just stay in medical school and be a doctor?" Because nurses aren't junior doctors – it's an allied profession with complementary standards and goals.

Or: "Do you really want to empty bedpans?" A remark not worth addressing, perhaps, but Springer doesn't shy away from the basic realities of care, either: Ensuring patients are clean and comfortable is essential to their well-being.

"You are not going to treat a patient how to, say, manage his diabetes if he's not comfortable," he said. "Sometimes you've got to clean that patient up, get them comfortable, change that bed."

Still, Springer thinks nursing could do a better job selling itself to male candidates.

"A degree in nursing is going to open up a thousand different doors for you," he said, citing opportunities not just for patient care, but for management, travel, flexibility, specialization. "It's a great degree to get."

Talking with Gary Springer didn't so much make me think that nursing needs more men as that it needs more nurses like Gary Springer.

It needs capable, compassionate people who are going to be ready to help all us baby boomers navigate the unfamiliar waters of aging and illness and, ultimately, death.

We're going to need all of those we can get.