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| A
key part to improving communication between clinicians
and male patients is for doctors and nurses to humanize
the care experience. Men need to know that asking
for help, admitting pain and expressing emotions
are natural human behaviors. |
It's a guy thing, and according to men's health advocates,
a significant contributor to an escalating crisis in
medical care.
Men think they're invincible is the way Tim King, RN,
sums it up.
Could that simple but false notion of indestructibility
actually be a factor in the deteriorating health of
American men? Many researchers and practitioners say
yes, because it means many men don't take care of themselves.
They are less likely to visit a doctor, to take preventive
health measures or to follow doctor's orders when they
do become ill. They die, on average, five years sooner
than women, according to the National Center for Health
Statistics, and for all leading causes of death, including
heart and lung disease, men and boys have higher fatality
rates than women and girls.
Despite the ominous health statistics and a growing
life expectancy gap between men and women, the average
American male doesn't seem to put much effort into his
physical or mental well-being.
"They think they're invincible-until something
happens," King said.
King works in a prison hospital north of Seattle where
just about all the patients are men. In that setting,
he finds inmates are more apt to seek care as a way
of getting attention than the general population of
men. Yet during his years as an emergency nurse, King
saw a common male response to health needs: denial.
A man is going to ignore the chest pains, he said, until
he actually collapses and someone has to take him in
for medical attention.
Blame it on the "boy code," a concept developed
by William Pollack, director of the Center for Men and
Young Men at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. Pollack,
an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical
School, traces the male aversion to health care back
to the "tough guy" lessons learned during
boyhood.
Men are socialized to feel illness is a defect in their
masculinity, Pollack said. From a young age, they're
taught a code of conduct that says real men do not cry,
nor do they ask for help. If boys do ask for help, often
they're put down for their "weakness."
When grown men do seek health care, many report feeling
put down by doctors and nurses. "The patient feels
one down," Pollack said. "They feel like the
other person knows more. They feel defective."
Although the health care profession has made progress
in addressing male health issues, Pollack believes more
needs to happen to make the health care system male-friendly.
The most successful way to reach out to male patients
is to work more with the way men think, Pollack said.
Approach self-care from a problem-solving perspective,
he said, and make it a team project. Make sure the man
feels part of that team.
This is where male nurses can make a difference.
Demetrius Porsche, DNS, RN, in a speech during last
month's American Assembly for Men in Nursing conference
in Cleveland, called on male nurses to help establish
a national men's health research agenda.
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