I think that is due to a variety of factors here. People in this community respect men as nurses. They see it as a very good profession with good pay and a lot of ways you can move up the ladder. Nurses were like the handmaiden of the physician many years ago. More and more when you speak to physicians, there is an awareness that nursing is its own unique profession.
Nurses represent the largest body of health-care providers.
You have a problem, you go to the doctor. When that problem is treated, you go home. The nurses' scope of practice encompasses everything. It's the whole individual and the family. The problem for a nurse doesn't really stop when you leave the hospital.