Mike Marshall loves his job, but still gets asked by his fraternity brothers when he's going to start his medical residency.
Rick Larango saw the opportunity for job security and a challenge when he opted to switch professions.
Lee Malone had just been laid off as a railroad switch operator when he took his wife's suggestion and joined her in school.
And James Green was an environmental technologist who loved the scientific aspect of his job — but longed for more personal contact.
Today, Marshall, Larango, Malone and Green are all nurses.
As such, they represent less than 6 percent of a profession dominated by women. And, like the first women who broke into male-dominated fields, male nurses have had to overcome a few stereotypes to pursue their careers.
Marshall saw the nursing profession up close during his father's illness and death from lung cancer. He was just 16, but the nurses inspired him to pursue a career in health care.
"I knew I wanted to help people, but didn't want to be a physician," Marshall said. With a nursing degree from the State University of West Georgia, he now works as a rehab nurse with the Shepherd Center in Atlanta.
Nurses "hold everything together with the patients, doctors and others in health care," Marshall said. "We make a difference and influence others' lives, and this has an impact on my own life."
Plus, he added, "The women I work with help me see things from a different perspective and have opened my eyes beyond the stereotypical roles."
Change has come slowly and the health care profession hasn't completely adapted itself to the growing presence of male nurses, he said.
"There are dressing rooms for doctors and nurses instead of men and women," Marshall said. "The call lights at the patients' bedsides still show a female nurse icon. Patients seem to think I'm a doctor because I'm male, and they listen more to me than to my female co-workers, even though the women usually know more than I do."
And then there are Marshall's fraternity brothers from West Georgia. "I don't think they get that I'm a nurse and that's what I've decided to do."
Job security and flexible work hours appeal to Marshall.
"Nursing also allowed me to integrate biology and psychology into my career. I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to be a doctor," he said. "Being a nurse allows me to be more giving and have the life I want."
Larango, an emergencyroom RN at South Fulton Hospital, tried working as a physical therapy technician for a while "but it wasn't very challenging for me," he said. "It just wasn't me."
A former air-traffic controller in the Navy, he first worked as a flight instructor when he became a civilian because he liked flying. After he was laid off, Larango searched online for "buzz" jobs, those that were considered hot, and found that health care offered challenges and job security.
His stint in physical therapy didn't provide the challenges he sought, so after talking with many of the nurses he worked with, Larango decided to study nursing. He graduated from nursing school at Kennesaw State University in 1998, launching a new career at age 40.
Larango continues to pursue his education.
"It's easier sometimes for women who are married and have kids to work three days a week and make decent money," he said, "but you hit that glass ceiling quickly as a nurse. If you go into management, you leave the clinical side. There are so many choices to continue my nursing career."
Malone, an RN at DeKalb Medical Center, works as a bed coordinator, and is responsible for matching patients with available beds throughout the system. The former railroad switchman went into nursing when he was laid off in 1982.
His wife, Saundra, was in nursing school and offhandedly suggested that he train to become a nurse.
"Her mouth fell open when I said 'OK' and promptly applied," he said. The two attended nursing school together in Meridian, Miss.
Now, Saundra Malone is a school nurse, with the same schedule as the couple's 6-year-old daughter. Malone's hours at DeKalb Medical are more flexible.
Malone said he immediately sets patients straight so they understand that he's not their doctor. "I just tell them up front that I'm their nurse."
Green, RN, BSN, works in the high-risk nursery at The Medical Center in Columbus. He spends shifts working with delicate preemies and newborns.
It's a far cry from his former job as an environmental technologist, but some of the same principles apply.
"I did lab work and had a background in science, but I wasn't getting the people contact," he said. "It was a hard decision to go back to school and quit my job."
Green had taken a part-time job delivering newspaperswhile his wife, Cindy, finished her nursing degree several years before.
"We had to make sacrifices and it was a leap of faith," he said.
Before he made the plunge into nursing, he worked as an emergency-room volunteer for six months, just to find out what he was getting into.
"I knew it wouldn't be an easy job, but I knew that nurses really make a difference," Green said.
When the time to enroll came, he got a scholarship from the Hughston Clinic. After he graduated, he worked for the clinic to pay back the scholarship.
Then he chose to work in the high-risk nursery.
"I fell in love with it. It's very rewarding," Green said.
"The awesome thing about being a nurse is that we're there when people take their first breath and when they take their last," he said. "This is me; this is where I belong."