Is nursing a woman’s job? When I asked nurse Ahmad Fashilin Mohammed Salihin this question, he looked genuinely thrown off for a moment.
You can’t blame him.
It is 2023. Why should gender hold us back from any occupation or aspiration?
Yet, in Singapore, only around one in 10 nurses are men, according to 2021 figures from the Singapore Nursing Board.
The 31-year-old nurse paused for a moment and then said plainly: “I think it is still a misconception that nursing is a woman’s role. Anyone can join the profession.”
Those who know Ahmad will not be surprised by his matter-of-fact response. Ahmad is not overtly expressive or verbose. In fact, he tends to downplay things.
Having worked as a senior enrolled nurse at the National University Hospital’s (NUH) emergency department for more than a decade, he won’t tell you about the heart-stopping moments – road traffic accidents, sudden deaths or critical illnesses.
He won’t tell you about the fatigue and stress of being on the frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic either.
Every day for 10 years, Ahmad simply shows up for patients, whether they require major trauma assistance or basic caregiving. He has never once stopped to question whether such caregiving work is a man’s or woman’s role. After all, what has gender got to do with taking care of others in our community?
A GUY’S GUY IN A FEMALE-DOMINATED WORLD
Yet, traditional gender stereotypes still exist. Ahmad admitted that some among the older generation still call nurses “Missy”, including male nurses such as himself.
If you were to see the 1.71m-tall nurse, you would find it hard to imagine anyone calling him “Missy”.
In fact, working as a nurse at the emergency department requires a lot of strength. And it is not just because Ahmad sometimes has to carry 100kg patients from wheelchair to trolley bed with his colleagues.
Working at the frontline of healthcare takes great emotional resilience because it constantly puts one face-to-face with life’s most harrowing moments. “I’ve seen so many cases such as road traffic accidents. I see blood and amputated limbs,” Ahmad said.
In such cases, he retains his composure. “I assess patients and mark out any external injuries such as bleeding, laceration or ablation. Then, I do whatever is necessary to sustain the patient and call on specialists and the trauma team to assist the patient,” he said.
In severe emergency cases, it is often a high-pressure battle against time – one that the healthcare team sometimes loses despite their best efforts.
Ahmad recalled one such case a few years ago when a Malay family brought their father to the emergency department.
“It was during the holy month when Muslim families were fasting, and the family had just had breakfast together. After breakfast, the patient had tummy pain and became unconscious,” he recalled.
“They carried him to their car and brought him to our emergency department where I assessed him immediately. There were no signs of life.
“I performed CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) for him in the car while waiting for my colleague to come and help me extricate him to a trolley bed. Then we tried to resuscitate him for two hours, but were unsuccessful,” he said.
Due to the nature of the emergency department, tensions can run high, even for non-emergency cases, such as cough, flu, fever, diarrhoea and vomiting
“Some people have the perception that if they come to the emergency department, they can be seen by the doctor faster (than at a regular clinic). But there is often a long waiting time here,” Ahmad pointed out, adding that for this reason, nurses at the emergency department encounter verbally abusive patients every other day.
Due to the nature of the emergency department, tensions can run high, even for non-emergency cases, such as cough, flu, fever, diarrhoea and vomiting
“Some people have the perception that if they come to the emergency department, they can be seen by the doctor faster (than at a regular clinic). But there is often a long waiting time here,” Ahmad pointed out, adding that for this reason, nurses at the emergency department encounter verbally abusive patients every other day.
This article appeared in https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/women/male-nurse-accident-emergency-department-national-university-hospital-353271
