Professional Presence & Influence
Janene Mills Loga
Western Governor's University
Professional Presence and Influence
C351

Professional Presence & Influence
Introduction
In these days of HCAHPS scores, and patient satisfaction being tied to reimbursement, it can be vitally important for the success of a healthcare facility, to have nurses who strive for quality relationships with their patients because this can influence the perception of the care received. A very important part of this is the professional presence the nurse conveys. A nurse’s professional presence is uniquely personalized; it is influenced by their own views on health and medicine, individual personality traits, how mindful they are in their practice, and in the type of healing environment in which they may be practicing.

Professional Presence
Models of Health and Healing
Dr. Larry Dossey, MD describes his theory of Western Medicine as having three Eras’. (Dossey) Era One, which he states to have started in the 1860’s and continued to the 1940’s. Era Two, which he proposes to have begun in the post World War II period to recent times. Era Three is the most recent which he states is an emerging shift to a new focus which he calls “Transpersonal Medicine”.
In Era One, Dr. Dossey describes the practice of medicine as being only physical in nature. He equates this era as focusing on the body and mind, and their functioning only in a physical way, not related to one another. He describes the thinking as being that what happens to the body, it’s function or disease state, is completely separate from any function or influence from the mind. He relates that the doctors of the day were mostly using therapies involving surgery and medications. In Era One, as he describes, there was really no acknowledgement of individual uniqueness. There was absolutely no connection that one’s