Last year medical world is shocked by the winning entry of the inaugural NSWNA Nurses Short Film Festival which portrayed an unsettling future in which robot nurses solved the problems of nursing scarcity. And it seems that these days are soon coming.
Scientists of US and Japan are developing robot nurses in the future. Japan plans to introduce robotic nurses to help take care of its aging population within five years, according to robotics company Zygbotics and based from Nursing Standard, US scientists are developing robots that can mimic facial expressions to convey empathy, as well as cleaning up spills, collecting drugs and transporting patients around hospitals. In fact “Louise” a robot – has been undergoing trials in Boston and Pittsburgh with constructive results.
These innovations are due to the rise of the demand for men and women in nursing uniforms and nursing scrubs. There is a low supply but high demand of nurses in US and even in the whole world. Nurses (RNs) comprise the majority of healthcare professionals in medical scrubs in the US. Just in the year 2000, there are 1.89 million estimated registered nurses in the country working full time in hospitals and health clinics across the country. The number seems to be large enough when seen at the numbers. Comparing it to the number of Americans however, who would need medical attention anytime; the number of nurses in the country simply does not fit the 300 million plus healthcare seeking Americans. Similarly, nursing associations and the government set a benchmark for the target number of nurses to be working by determining demand. That demand was set to 2.0 million. Given that the current population of nurses countrywide is only penned at 1.89 million, it is clear that the country in general or the healthcare field in particular is suffering from 110,000 deficits. This is roughly 6% shortage.
Thus in the medical world nurses must not be considered inferior. In fact without these people in medical scrubs this world itself will suffer. But I do hope that robots will not be an alternative to human nurses because still we humans need the hands and care of fellow humans like nurses.
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