iROC: Male Nursing Students in an Obstetric Clinical Experience

The Alexian Brothers Hospital School of Nursing was an all-male nursing school at an all-male hospital in Chicago that closed in 1969. In the 1950s, male nursing students were not required to have an obstetrical clinical experience. When they took the licensing exam, they were allowed to substitute urological nursing for the section on obstetrics. As requirements changed, the Brothers had to work with other hospitals to allow the men to have a clinical experience in obstetrics. Dean Susan LaRocco’s talk will describe the variety of arrangements that were made and the experiences of the male students as these changes occurred. 

Dean LaRocco was invited to present this lecture, based on research funded by the Karyn and Terrance Holm Visiting Scholar Award, at the Midwest Nursing Archives in Chicago. It is part of a larger oral history project focused on the men who graduated from the Alexian Brothers Hospital School of Nursing. Other aspects of the project have focused on the men's choice of nursing as a career, their experience as nursing students, and their subsequent careers. This work followed Dr. LaRocco’s dissertation research on men in nursing.

Dr. Susan LaRocco is the Dean of the School of Nursing at Mount Saint Mary College. She holds a BS degree from Boston College, an MS in Nursing Administration from Boston University, and an MBA from NYU.She earned her PhD at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.Dr. LaRocco's major research interest is male nurses, in particular the recruitment and retention of men in nursing. She has been engaged in an oral history project, with more than 20 completed interviews of graduates of the former Chicago-based Alexian Brothers Hospital School of Nursing. Dr LaRocco is active in the American Association for Men in Nursing, previous serving on their Board. She is also active in the American Association for the History of Nursing, and is currently a member of their Board of Directors.