Each year, they provide counseling during more than 2,000 outpatient visits. They care for children, adolescents, and adults. While your E.T. nurse does not function as your primary nurse, the E.T. nurse s goal is to help ensure a smooth recovery so you can return to normal daily life as rapidly as possible. Your E.T. nurse is available to provide individualized care and instruction at the bedside before and after surgery, in the outpatient clinics, and by phone even when you are at home. Nearly one million people in North America have ostomies, and 70,000 new ostomy surgeries are performed each year.
People learn to lead very normal lives with temporary and permanent ostomies of all kinds.
They work, have children, eat well, travel and lead active lives. E.T. nurses offer preoperative counseling, working individually with patients to provide them with information about their surgery and prepare them for what to expect afterward. E.T. nurses play an important role in stoma siting, or finding the best spot on the abdomen for the surgeon to create the stoma. They try to identify a spot which will help ensure both comfort and a reliable seal with the ostomy pouch. After surgery, E.T. nurses assess the abdominal and stomal area, and recommend the most appropriate pouching system.