A new day for men in nursing

In the movie "Meet the Fockers," Ben Stiller's character is a nurse who is forced to put up with a barrage of insults about his profession's supposed lack of manliness. Stereotypes about male nurses may still persist in the movies, but they are rapidly changing in the health care field.

Men have been nurses since at least 250 B.C., when the first nursing school, which accepted only male students, was established in India. In the United States, men accounted for 5.4 percent of the registered nurses in 2000, but recent U.S. Department of Labor surveys and nursing school enrollments show that the numbers have climbed to almost 7 percent and are expected to increase. Full Article

Greetings from Iraq

Many people who serve in the military send home digital pictures, but few send photos like those from Ramona Mulleins, department chair for practical nursing at Columbus Technical College.

Mulleins, RN, BSN, MSN, who served for a year as a chief nurse in an Army combat support hospital in Takrit, Iraq, never forgot her role as a teacher. Every week she e-mailed pictures of patients, with descriptions of the injuries she encountered and the innovative surgical procedures used to treat them. Full Article

Private party

Carrie Pinotti watched as her twin daughters went round and round in the flying cars. Julia and Claire, 2, sported huge grins and giggled as they enjoyed the ride.

"Mommy, that was wild," they said and dashed for the carousel.

On Dec. 3, the twins and about 40 other patients and their families from the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorder Center had the 2006 Festival of Trees to themselves. Full Article