Fifty years from now, when the nurses of 2070 reflect on the history of their profession, they won’t have to work hard to find out what things were like in 2020.
They’ll just have to pop open a time capsule being prepared by the St. Tammany Health System Nursing Department that is being stashed for safe keeping in a glassed-in enclosure being built into the health system’s nearly complete new patient tower.
“We don’t know what nursing is going to look like in 50 years,” STHS Chief Nursing Officer Kerry Milton said, “but we want to send a message to our future colleagues and we want to remind them to take care of each other. We particularly hope they, too, will be able to give back to this community the way care was provided in 2020.”
Although the time capsule will include such COVID-related items as an N95 mask, a face shield and possibly an empty vaccine vial, Milton stressed that it isn’t intended to be a memorial to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In fact, the idea was dreamed up long before the coronavirus reared its head, as a way to acknowledge 2020 as the year of the nurse, as designated by the World Health Organization in recognition of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale.
And so, among the items in the capsule will be an STHS nursing residency lapel pin, a copy of the nursing pay scale from 2020, photos and a letter to the nurses of the future penned by Nursing Supervisor LeeAnn Prisk, who was tasked with spearheading the logistics of the project with input from the health system’s entire nursing team.
After more than a year of planning, the items will be placed in the sealed, stainless-steel capsule – which is really more of a trunk, measuring roughly 2 feet long, 1.5 feet high and 1.5 feet deep. On the top of the box is a plaque, which will be visible to visitors and which explains it isn’t to be opened until 2070.
In addition to connecting to her future colleagues, Prisk said she hopes as much as anything else that the time capsule serves as a touchstone for the tradition of quality care at St. Tammany Health System.
“I want them to be proud of where they work,” Prisk said of her future colleagues. “The quality of care here at St. Tammany Health System really is something to be proud of – and I don’t see those standards changing.”