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Welcome to this episode of NLN podcast Nursing EDge Unscripted the scholarship track. I'm your host Dr. Steven Palazzo a member of the editorial board for Nursing Education Perspectives. Nursing EDge Unscripted and our track entitled scholarship celebrates the published work of select nurse educators from the NLN's official journal Nursing Education Perspective and the NLN Nursing EDge
blog. The conversations embrace the author's unique perspective on teaching learning innovation and implications for nursing program development and enhancement in this episode we are going to talk about the mentoring experience of male faculty and nursing program. We will discuss the author's article mentoring experiences of male faculty and nursing programs published in the September October 2021 issue of Nursing Education Perspectives, volume 42,
issue five. Our speaker today is Dr. Christina T. Ortiz, Allen College Department of Nursing in Waterloo, Iowa. So I'm happy to have you here today with us and thank you for joining us in this I think you know important conversation. I do some work in this area, not so much the mentoring but with men in nursing and creating a pipeline or pathway for young adults in high school to get into the profession. So we're going to start...thank you.
We're going to start right into our questions. And the first question I want to ask you is can you talk about how you developed your interest in the mentoring experience of men and nursing academia? Absolutely. Well first of all, I really would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my research related to the mentoring experiences of male faculty in nursing programs. I would say that my interest related to the male faculty experiences specifically
really developed as part of my dissertation. I really think that like many people either you have a very positive or a kind of a negative experience right and that's related to the mentoring aspect. And I wanted to know what others went through. As a novice faculty, I was assigned a mentor. I would say really strongly it was my mentor who provided me an incredible amount of support, especially in my first year in that new faculty
role, that novice position. It was just...I encountered a variety of issues and she was there for me not to tell me what to do, but to challenge me really, to challenge me to think about what was happening, how it was related to my personal philosophy of nursing and academia, and what I was doing. And so I had a great positive experience but I know that not everyone even individuals at that same time did or do for that matter. So then I kind of you know jump ahead a couple years.
I started my doctoral studies and I remember meeting with a colleague who said to me that as I was looking at dissertation topics, really choose one that I felt strongly about, something that I could live with, right, because it was going to take a little bit of time and effort. I then remember we had a seminar course as part of my doctoral studies and we had to discuss potential topics and how, where, what direction we saw
those topics going. And we were questioned heavily about the nature of the topics and we would spend about 10 to 15 minutes. We kind of did a like a speed interview type thing with other faculty members in the doctoral program where they would question our topics and I was questioned so much that first day I felt almost defeated honestly, I mean, but it was good. It was not defeated. I just felt challenged.
And so I went home that night and I thought oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to scrap this and find something completely new and different to start working on. What am I gonna do? And then the next day we had another round of these discussion mini meetings if you will, and I had a male faculty member who I was, you know, putting my idea out there to and I made the comment how after the day before I felt like oh I need to come up with something new.
And that male faculty member said, don't give up. Consider where that gap is. Really look for it and I mean something that we've heard of tons of times, but that faculty member said that to me and I thought oh my goodness this is it. It was like I knew at that point. It hit me. I knew what my experiences were. I knew what my experiences were as a female, but what about the male perspective of that? How were those different if they were
different at all? And so that really kind of shows my path, my development into how I got to be interested first of all in mentoring and then obviously in the mentoring experiences of male faculty, kind of having someone say what, what's missing? Like as is to say, you need to probe that a little bit further with that aspect. So that's how I got my interest in that topic in general.
Wonderful. well my next question kind of builds on this what are your thoughts on the lack of male role models and how that may impact the pathways for recruiting men into the profession that's a great question I think this is perhaps the most difficult aspect to overcome in general right you've had some work in that area you said and so I think it goes back to history that has been portrayed I'm not saying that this is the correct history because there's history even further back that's a
little different but when we look at it women traditionally were seen as the caretakers right the nurturers and their families and in their careers or the careers that they identified with were were those caretaker and nurturer careers but what I think is throughout my conversation with these participants regardless of age and regardless of their role in academia it was evident that the lack of role model male role models was an issue is potentially
still an issue it was really interesting to note that because of this lack of male role models some of the participants felt that other males would purposefully search them out whether it was through social media whether it was at conferences regardless of what it was or even in a classroom setting having being a male faculty and having those students who would reach out to you looking for that so they would be searched out for with that being said I think that one way to
help with this is really to develop programs for males in middle and high school and I think middle school they don't know what they want to do yet but we have to start early they need to learn about the opportunities within the profession and what a wonderful profession there it is and how they can really be involved in this so i think that if you read through some of the aspects of the of the article the role of early supporters was something that was surprising to me
and identified by the participants so again this and the early supporters may have been males may have been females but someone who said to them you should think about nursing you would be great in this profession look at that career look at what you could do so I think that really hits home the importance of connecting males early on with other male role models and you might even consider it a mentoring program if you will for these young middle and high school age young men who are who
are looking at where their future could take them and really showing them that that this is a valuable and important career for them to consider well we know the impact that family members who are nurses have on especially males decisions to choose nurturing as a career most likely because they have insight into exactly what a nurse does where many high school students I find in young adults you're talking about really don't have an understanding of the nurses role
in healthcare system from and also much of the media doesn't betray it in such a way that it's very accurate I think the pandemic has brought out a lot of aspects of the profession that were hidden from the public and so that has been good but i still think we have a tendency i don't know if you agree or not you know caring is a very important aspect of the profession and we certainly do a very good job at emphasizing the caring aspect I've always positioned my thoughts that
caring is not unique to nursing i would argue many people in professions that are related to nursing care about what they're doing in their clients and patients because we heavily emphasize that but we don't emphasize the science of nursing and what we do and what we have to know as science is right do the things that we do at the bedside and I want to hear a little bit about your thoughts on that and how that may or may not not just display men from coming into
the profession but for everyone right so I think that really resonates you're right we have to look at these science the stem fields right this is one of those stem fields really you look at that we the things we do in nursing come because of the science that's been developed behind all of that right we've really seen that especially coming forward here recently but I think it's important and I think it's important for not just males all young adults to see the value of whatever career
choice they take and the importance of the science behind any field right because they all have some form of science within them and so those STEM fields are important in our society and to help the professions really progress forward so absolutely I would agree i think we need to hit home the fact of the importance of science in those high school classes in those middle school you think oh it's just high school biology or it's just high school anatomy but no that can
help set a foundation that can help trigger someone to really consider oh all the things I could do with a science background so absolutely or math background right any of them very valuable i would agree that's a great point and you're right individuals care I think that maybe is part of something that goes wrong you could tie that into the mentoring piece as well individuals care so based upon their experiences and one of the things I talked about was paying
it forward so whether the mentee the protege had a positive experience or maybe a negative experience they he felt propelled the participants felt propelled to do something about it so I want to give back somebody the same experience i had because it was wonderful or I want to create an even better experience for the next group of people that come through in nursing in academia et cetera so I think that kind of ties in you're right they do care about
their experiences and what they went through and how they can make it better for the next group many of the mentoring theories described in your article are not unique to men and perfection please elaborate on the specific insights on the need for understanding that you mentioned in the article yeah that's great you are correct the barriers that I identified or the participants identified really were related to time which time is everything right in our world and the lack
of support lack of support from mentors protege and or the institution that you're right is not new to the body of literature that was out there necessarily but the need for understanding wasn't as seen necessarily as a barrier but more of an identified theme related to the role of gender really came up in the role of gender peace excuse me half of the participants described in their own way this need for understanding two of them specifically commented on the importance
of needing a mentor regardless of gender they said taking the gender piece out of it everyone needs a mentor it wasn't about for them it wasn't about male or female it was about individuals and their need for support and encouragement in taking on this new role new role of faculty member three of the other individuals then described the need for understanding beyond the gender aspect for them it was important to acknowledge that gender differences were there right it's a part
but but it was more about finding a person or even people that they could connect with on a personal and professional level and really be available these people be available to them as mentors to help them work through these roles in academia and what they were going through so overall while that need for understanding was described by the participants I think this might be you know male participants this might be applicable to applicable to a variety of underrepresented groups
like i think this transcends the mail piece and I know it's big you can't generalize you know with these these small number of participants but boy I think it speaks to the fact of they hit home on the fact that these their individuals need that support regardless again what career choice you make but taking it and being an individual who's under-represented in a group really they need that understanding that support someone to help them work through multiple people maybe to help
them work through those things those issues that they're going through as in a novice role right I think the research is pretty clear that mentoring is a very important aspect of success in academia and those that have mentoring early on have an easier transition through the different roles throughout their progress whether they're on a tenure track or not and I like how your article specifically pulls up some of the characteristics that are unique to men and helping to assist in
that kind of mentorship finally I want to know what your thoughts are and how we attract more men into the profession and how do we create a space for them in academia because we know you know men currently the latest figures are 9.6 of the nursing population are men and i have to tell you in the early 1970s there was about two to four percent so we haven't made great progress in 50 years and so there's something going on that's not attracting men
to the profession despite the amount of money these men should make coming out of the profession the career advancement opportunities the educational opportunities the flexibility and work schedules and work environments something is not happening some message is just not getting out there so just kind of want to know your thoughts specifically academia I know I've heard from colleagues across the country about these individual experiences they had that
were fairly negative in academia and the lack of support they felt coming through the system yeah that's a great question and while I would agree with you we have made a little bit of progress right there's more progress to be made just considering the sheer numbers attracting more men and underrepresented groups is key it's key to the nursing profession in order to really create a workforce that's reflective of society right you want to see people that look like you when you're
being taken care of and when you're in a hospital setting when you're in a clinic when you're in a community setting regardless of where you're at so and the same thing in a in a college university school of nursing you want to see individuals that look like you and that is peers and faculty either one so i think that this goes like i said for all groups really I could go for all groups early exposure to the nursing profession and marketing I know that seems you know marketing
yeah those are two big things we need to reach them early and we need to market it so think of it in the way like you described if young men can see other men in a nursing career and then further that one more step not just see them but encourage them to consider the profession right we need to include more male nursing role figures in television in public arenas and in social media these role models they need to speak up about the benefits of this career of nursing and then even
nursing academia you know I think perhaps one of the most far-reaching ways is social media let's be realistic people are more connected than ever and this means globally not just here so I think about all the individuals that I see globally male and females that are on social media so if we and i say we as a collective nursing society can draw attention to the opportunities we may be able to encourage those diverse individuals to consider the profession and taking this a step further once
these males to begin with to speak about males specifically but any underrepresented individual enter nursing school we need to provide them with support they need that additional support in the nursing school years right in the time that they're in the college university setting and this could be through peers informal mentors formally set up mentors and that administrative support isn't is important it's essential to help create the space for these individuals in academia
so we need support from our administration as well to in our schools of nursing to say yes we value that mentoring piece we value the fact of how our faculty and other peer students can connect with other students or other students even in the community to be a a champion for the profession of nursing and all the opportunities that can be found academia including that because we need individuals in academia more so than ever now well I want to thank you so much for joining us
for this in conversation i really appreciated reading your article and the contributions that it made to this conversation that we've been having on a national level for the last few years especially around mentoring and I like the unique aspect that you brought into with men's unique needs in academia and mentoring i appreciate your time and expertise in sharing your work and broadening our understanding of this work and how we can kind of take some of this information back
to our own institutions and start thinking about maybe if we don't have a mentoring program how to incorporate one and start tweaking ones that we have to take into consideration some of the
things we pointed out in this article. And to our listeners if you've not had an opportunity to read about this work please take a look at Dr. Ortiz's manuscript again mentoring experiences of male faculty and nursing programs is published in the September October issue of 2021 buying 42 issue 5. and I want to thank the listeners for joining us and again Dr. Ortiz for joining us today and taking some time out of our day to talk a little bit about the work that went around her
ideas for this article so thank you thank you so very much and thank you to all the listeners I greatly appreciate the opportunity to share this. [Music]