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University Twitter campaign aims to make nursing more appealing to men

Glasgow Caledonian University wants to redress gender imbalance among nursing students
campaign's Twitter page

Glasgow Caledonian University wants to redress gender imbalance among nursing students


The @GCUMenRnurses2 campaign Twitter page.

University staff have started a Twitter campaign to attract more male nursing undergraduates.

Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) staff came up with the idea of the @GCUMenRnurses2 social media campaign to appeal to a younger audience. Nursing lecturer Stevie Morrison said they wanted to reach as many young people as possible to break down nurse stereotypes.

Taking the message to schoolchildren

‘Our plan is to take our message out to schools,’ he said. ‘It’s vitally important to get that message to children as young as possible.’

GCU said 8% of its 1,844 nursing students are men, with a 1.4% increase this year. This is line with a general increase in male nursing students in Scotland in 2019.

Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) data revealed an 11% increase in male applicants to nursing degrees in Scotland to 410 this year, up from 370 last year. But this is still well below the number of female applicants – 4,840 women applied to study nursing in Scotland in 2019.

A total of 3,440 men applied to study nursing in the UK as a whole in 2019, compared to 37,750 women.

However, not everyone is a fan of male-focused recruitment campaigning and the RCN's 2018 congress rejected a call for a strategy targeting men.

According the latest data from the Nursing and Midwifery Council, about 12% of 693,618 registrants are men.


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