Plenty of room for nurses and robots

My pre-Xmas post Welcoming immigrants and robots to fill the nursing shortage has taken a lot of flak from commenters on the Health Care Blog and Glorfindel of Gondolin, who wants to know what I've been smoking. The big objection seems to be to my suggestion that by 2025 robot nurses could provide encouragement and engage in pleasant conversation. Call me crazy, or worse, but I don't think my ideas are far-fetched at all.(None of this tops being called a "commie", "incompetent" and "parasite" when I pointed out we had waiting lists for health care in the US, too.)Anyway, everyone can rest easy now that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has announced they expect 600,000 new RN jobs to be created between now and 2018 (see Nursing Offers A Healthy Employment Future). That should leave plenty of opportunities for nurses of all kinds.