Integrative Practitioner Model for Transforming Healthcare: Florence Nightingale's Legacy – Local to Global
Barbara Dossey, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN
Format: Video of Slides

History is one of the most important aspects of any profession. Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), the philosophical founder of modern nursing, was a mystic visionary, healer, scientist, practitioner, politician, environmentalist, and reformer. Her achievements are astounding when considered against the backdrop of the Victorian era. Her contributions to healthcare theory, research, statistics, public health, and healthcare reform event today are foundational and inspirational. Nightingale had vision, dedication, and commitment.

Healthcare practitioners can identify with the problems she faced and the challenges she overcame. Nightingale's life embodied social action and a profound spiritual call and purpose, which our world sorely needs. Her drive for social action was ferocious-improving the health of society and the environment. The Nightingale (1820-1910) legacy empowers us to recognize our role as citizen activists at our deepest and highest expression of self, nature, and culture and to focus on the individual and the collective, the inner and outer, and human and non-human concerns. The time has come to increase our role as Integrative Healthcare Practitioners with our message of health and wellness combined with traditional technology when appropriate.