C351 YOT2 Task
Amanda Drucker
Western Governors University
C351 YOT2 Task
2
A. Professional Presence
Human, a word many use each and every day, most of the time without thinking of the meaning of the word. Of course there is a definition which one can find in any dictionary or encyclopedia, but the meaning, that is something that has evolved and continues to change each and every day. In fact the meaning of the word human can be described differently by nearly everyone who is asked. Dr. David Livingstone Smith, an associate professor at University of
New England, states, “ answering this question is not as straightforward as it might appear,” when asked, what it means to be human (Smith, 2012). It can therefore be said that as the definition of being human changes and evolves so does the way we care for others in medicine.
Dr. Larry Dossey describes three eras of medicine, each evolves from ideas of the previous and has changed over the years. In the first era, medicine has a “mechanical” approach which only involves drugs, procedures, and surgical intervention (Dossey, n.d.). In era two Dr. Dossey discusses a change that began to appear in medicine, that is, “that disease has a ‘psychosomatic’ aspect: that emotions and feeling can influence the body’s functions,” (Dossey, n.d.). Finally in era three it is said that, “ an individual’s mind may affect not just his or her body, but the body of another person at a distance, even when that distant individual is unaware of the effort,” as well as the idea of the consciousness having a bigger impact in life and the the human body (Dossey,
n.d.). It is evident that in each era change began to impact the thinking in medicine as did the idea that healing can come from more than just “mechanical medicine”. There are multiple models to health
