Title
Experience as an African American Man in Nursing School
Files
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Identifier
BrewerC_01_20190516_Clip03
Publication Date
5-16-2019
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Transcript
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
And you got that degree in 1972.
C.C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS
Right. I completed my four-year baccalaureate education from Prairie View University in 1972. While I was in nursing school, I was the president of my nursing class from freshman through my senior year. I had lots of great experiences, also some—very much some challenges because remember this is 1968, so this is 1969, 1970, there’s still not a great acceptance of men in nursing. The stigma is even bigger for—on male nurses at that time. When I entered Prairie View, I was one of six guys who were in my—who were accepted into that first male class then. We were the first males to be accepted into Prairie View’s program.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
Wow.
C.C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS
The dean at the time was a trailblazer. However, the guys dropped out—
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
So you’re the—
C.C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS
—along the way.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
—the only one left?
C.C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS
I was the only one left to graduate in 1972, so I became the first male graduate of Prairie View A&M University College of Nursing in 1972.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
Now, was the stigma in—against male nurses at the time, did—what were the ideas patients were bringing versus what were the ideas that students and professionals in healthcare bringing?
C.C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS
Well, the perspective—let me start [taking two faces?], perspective of the patients. In the LVN school, we were told—we were—I was told that “The jobs that would be available to you as a male LVN would be in the area of men care.” Urology, orthopedics, emergency room, those were the traditional roles of a nurse—a male nurse in the ’60s whether you were in Dallas or Chicago. That’s on the military as a medic, a medic level because a lot of guys went to the military and then they—and when they left and they became medics, and after medic, they entered nursing school. But remember in 1960s and the ’70s, all those guys in the Vietnam War. It was post-Vietnam where you saw the surge of male nurses, but they were coming out of the military where they’ve been medics. But anyway, my experience was that I at my—well, in the LVN school and when I did work doing the summers between—when I was in Prairie View, my job were in urology, orthopedics, were my primary roles. I was not allowed to care for female patients. I was allowed to assist in the care of a female patient but not independent.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
What about children?
C.C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS
Oh, the same thing with children. I was able to care for children, male kids—I mean, excuse me, the males only. Because I can recall in my baccalaureate program at Prairie View, one of the significant courses that you take is like you take Medical-Surgical Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, OB, pediatric nursing. With my OB rotations, I had trouble finding a hospital that would accept me as a nursing student, a professional nursing student for my clinical care.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
Right.
C.C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS
St. Luke’s wouldn’t accept me, Methodist Hospital wouldn’t accept me, so I ended up having to do all of my OB experience and pediatric experiences at the county. It not called Lyndon Baines Johnson, but at the time, it was called Jefferson Davis Hospital. And guess what, I don’t regret it. I’m glad they sent me to Jeff Davis Hospital, the county hospital. My experiences were far beyond what my colleague—what my peer group was getting.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
Really? Why was that?
C.C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS
This county hospital, it was a little more liberal. I was allowed to work independently with my patients, and I think that was the difference.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
Interesting, yeah. Mm-hmm.
C.C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS
And so that was my—one of my biggest encounters as a nursing—male nursing student was in the area of OB-GYN. I didn’t have any problem with psych or the others, but one of the things we—I had to be very cognizant of was the gender situation and respected that and not—and didn’t—I didn’t try to pressure that. It was 1970, 1971. That was just the time.
Recommended Citation
Brewer, Cecil C. RN, BSN, MS and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Experience as an African American Man in Nursing School" (2019). Race, Gender, & Work @ The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center: Triumphs of Houston’s Leading Hospital. 50.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_racegenderwork/50
