Male Nurse Supervises Placentia-Linda Hospital’s Obstetrics Staff

“Most people think I’m a doctor,” said Gilbert Santillan, 32, as he cradled a newborn in Placentia-Linda Community Hospital’s obstetrics ward, “because most people don’t think of a man as an obstetric nurse.”

More than that, Santillan is director of the 22-nurse obstetrics staff, all women.

The role reversal, according to Pat Swaller, assistant director of nursing, “created some questions, but his credentials made him the best qualified of five that applied for the job in our new unit.” Those qualifications were earned in seven years at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where 46 births occur on an average day. He worked in the high-risk delivery unit as well as in emergency.

“He treats babies as if they were his own and that’s the care he demands of his staff,” said Swaller. But Santillan, a Cal State Long Beach graduate who plays piano in a three-piece band, owns a travel business and gave up on professional baseball “when I couldn’t hit,” says children are not in his future. “I have kids here every day.”

In deciding on obstetrics instead of a role as an emergency nurse, La Habra resident Santillan said: “Obstetrics has the emergency room feel, but it’s more positive. Here we don’t have people dying all the time.”

Although unaware of any other male obstetrics director anywhere, Santillan feels “the job is the same for everyone, male or female.” He notes the hospital also has four general duty male nurses on staff.

How does his staff accept him?

Said Santillan: “Doctors and nurses treat me no differently than a woman. When I get together with my staff, I just become one of the girls.”

John Rader, president of the Off Shore Women’s Canoe Club of Newport Beach, which won last weekend’s U.S. National Outrigger championship, said “it was a great effort” in winning the race against 14 other teams.

It really was an understatement. The women finished the 27-mile race to Catalina almost eight minutes ahead of the second-place squad.

The singles scene in Orange County continues to be strong, and one indication, according to Jean Lester of Fullerton College, is the sellout of informational booths at $50 and $100 each for the annual gathering.

Another clue is the annual turn-away crowd of 2,000.

The Fullerton school, along with five other community colleges, churches, clubs and singles organizations, started the event four years ago at the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel in Costa Mesa and the one on Sept. 13 “is expected to be the largest singles gathering ever,” said Lester.

“This gives singles a chance to get information about their needs,” she said, “such as college programs, places to go, places to live and how to live in a single world complicated by separation, divorce or death of a partner.”

It costs $10 to get in.

Acknowledgments--Anaheim Northrop Corp. employees Thomas M. Sneed of Irvine and Rolf Krumes of Anaheim received the Commander’s Award, the U.S. Army’s third-highest civilian award, for producing an Army helicopter night-vision training system . . . Orange County Transit District bus drivers David Kuntz of Huntington Beach, Jon E. Jackman of Corona, Natalie Simmons of Garden Grove, Ron Worthington of Garden Grove and Maria Espinoza of Nuevo, Calif., were awarded Driver Lift Awards for helping handicapped passengers . . . Elsie White of San Clemente was selected Woman of the Year by the South Coast chapter of the American Business Women’s Assn.