Gerontological nurses walk a tight rope stretching across the centuries from the past to the present that introduced the notion that those who entered could survive and recover. The modern hospital is 18th century innovation and those who entered were youths with acute injuries rather than chronic illnesses heavily seen in modern society. Beginning in the 1980s, nurse researchers have pursued answers on older adults about their well-being, and those suffering from serious chronic conditions.Bowers2020/> The NIH played a powerful role in advancement of geriatric nursing science in the 1980s and 1990s, since then the NIH has funding nurse investigators who are transforming understanding of gerontological nursing. Although nurses published articles about care of older adults as early as 1904, the specialty of gerontological nursing emerged beginning in the 1950s, with the publication of the first gerontological nursing textbook. Pioneers in the field of gerontological nursing include Vera McIver, Doris Schwartz, Mary Opal Walanin.