It is with great pride that I step into the role of president of the Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nurses' Society. Serving as president elect under Margaret Goldberg has been a great learning experience. I have worked with an energetic and forward thinking leader. She has helped to advance the role of the Society by developing a strong and futuristic strategic plan, cementing relationships with other organizations, and energizing members. Thank you, Margaret, for your leadership, your friendship, and your dedication to our members. The WOCN Board is comprised of hard working, thoughtful, dynamic members, whom I look forward to continuing to work with.
When I get together professionally and socially with my WOCN Society friends, I am always amazed at the passion that I see in all that they do. I am in a practice that allows me to watch WOC nurse colleagues as they interact with their patients and with staff when managing ostomy, wound, and continence problems. When they walk into a room, they immediately command attention with their leadership, competency, and genuine caring spirit. When WOC nurses introduce themselves to colleagues, I see the immediate understanding that an expert is here, the problem will be managed, education will be delivered, and the issue will be addressed. The reputation of the WOC nurse is one of excellence, compassion, and quality. It is this reputation that we must continue to build upon by letting all that touch our specialty know what we do, being clear about our contributions, supporting education and research, and collaborating with other health care providers.
Communication of our contribution to wound, ostomy, and continence care is imperative. Some communication may appear simple and mundane, for instance, charting after a patient consult. But never consider this mundane, because while you are documenting your assessment, your plan, and the patient's response, you are also communicating to all that read your notes how to best take care of this patient, what interventions should be implemented, and why these interventions are part of the plan of care. This communicates the value of your contribution, but also educates at the same time. Consider other avenues of communication, such as collecting data on a series of patient cases and developing a case series (and publishing in the Journal of Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nursing), writing an article for the local ostomy support group newsletter, sending to your referral sources, as well as your administrators, the types of patients you have managed in a given month, and illustrating an outcome on one patient case. Let people know the value of WOC nurses!!
Given the number of patients with wound, ostomy, and continence issues, education will be the key to ensure quality care to this patient population. As a society we need to find ways to educate the caregivers at the bedside, the suppliers at the product source, and the health care providers who are making the initial assessments and referrals. Our strategic plan outlines areas that we will concentrate upon, such as improving educational resources to our members and investigating models to provide education to non-WOC nurses.
We should all be proud of the Center for Clinical Investigation (CCI), for in it we have a venue for developing and funding research in all areas of our practice. The CCI offers us several small research grants, a review process to help applicants prepare for a grant, and the member's research grant, which many of you have financially supported. We have resources to contribute to evidence-based practice; we need our members to fully utilize these resources.
Collaboration with other health care providers and patient advocacy groups is essential. To that end the WOCN Board will continue to develop relationships with health care provider groups that complement our patient population. A good example is the work that the ostomy subcommittee has done in developing a working relationship with the American Society of Colorectal Surgeons, and as a result, collaboratively developed a position paper and procedure on stoma site selection. Thank you to the ostomy subcommittee for starting multidisciplinary relationship building. This is a model that we will build on in the future.
Wound, ostomy, and continence nurses are recognized as the professional leaders in our areas of practice. This professional recognition comes with the responsibility of continuing to advocate for our patient populations, educate providers of WOC care, validate what we do, and communicate our contributions. I am proud to be a wound, ostomy, and continence nurse. I could not imagine finding such satisfaction in another field. I look forward to working with the members of the WOCN Society who I know share my passion.