What nursing will be like in the FuTuRe!

In a time where our economy is shaky, government is uncertain, and a customer service driven terminally ill health care system, we all tend to wonder out of fear and anxiety what our field will be like in the future.

Let's face it ladies and gents, at the rate we're going at I don't believe many of us will be retiring as soon as we'd like to as our careers continue on unnaturally, many years from now I can easily see the following:

1) It will become common place for 90 year old nurses to be hoofing it up and down the halls of the med/surg floor comments such as, "Is it time for my lunch break yet? I'm having Jevity 1.5 tonight!" and "Damnit, go get the charge nurse I'm leaking embalming fluid again." are certain to be heard. Hospitals will have long been smoke free, but to show compassion to their nursing staff with COPD smoke breaks will be replaced with 2 ten minute nebulizer and Solu-Medrol breaks.

2) To receive health care in this town is to revieve health care YOUR way! That's right, ER's will have a drive through option! I can just hear it now...
"Hello sir, I would like a monitored telemetry bed for the #2 Pneumonia and CHF combo with a large dose of Avelox, a medium dose of Lasix with extra duonebs. And my daughter would like a non telemetry bed for the nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain triple, Dilaudid and Phenergan only please, oh and let's make her admission a 23 hour obs, she's got a date tomorrow night."

3) Nursing Homes will be exactly that, homes for nurses who are too demented to continue working, they'll still be allowed to dress in scrubs and be encouraged to continue "working" within the safe confines of an ill-reputed rest home. Picture all the granny nurses feeding their doll babies ice cream saying things such as "You'll eat your full liquid diet and like it, sonny!" The staff will actually be security guards charged with the duty of keeping us under control, after all by this point we nurses will have become quite violent after all the crap we've gone through.

4) Back at the hospital, fall risk assessments will be for employees only. Hospital visitors will be encouraged to assist any nurse they see with an armband that says "FALL RISK", please assist that nurse to the next room so that she/he may continue performing their duties on the next patient SAFELY!

5) Risk Management will be renamed "Disc Management" in an attempt to help all the aching backs of their loyal health care workers and to determine "who's at risk for slippin' a disc!"

In all seriousness, I do worry tremendously about never being able to retire, working until I'm literally too feeble physically or mentally to work anymore, and about the general state of health care. However, I do find that making light of it makes the worry less intense. Please feel free to add your vision of what futuristic health care will be like!!!