Using creative arts therapy workshops to explore stoma patients' feelings

I am a stoma nurse and a play/creative arts therapist. My main focus is in the area of the loss, grief and trauma that people may suffer following illness and stoma surgery and how it may affect them. Each person's experience in hospital and how they process this experience is unique to them. I developed the creative arts workshops with another therapist to provide a safe space for people who have stomas, to explore their emotions around illness and surgery and life with a stoma. I was pleased to be nominated and to be a runner-up in the Stoma Care Nurse of the Year category of the BJN Awards 2020.

It is important that, as professionals, we are aware that our stoma patients may potentially be traumatised by events that occur in hospital and this risk is increased in times of high stress when patients feel more isolated and may be feeling more vulnerable as a result.