Embodied ostomy work and the varying scales of medical expertise

We analyze the ways in which people with ostomies experience care from varying scales of expertise in the medical system: medical doctors, nurses, and the patients themselves. Through in-depth interviews with people with ostomies, we reveal that medical doctors often frame the ostomy as a last resort. In contrast, we find that specialized care nurses, or Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurses (WOCN), engaged with a different kind of grounded expertise that uplifted and prepared people with ostomies to feel empowered to handle their ongoing care. In addition to medical and nursing constructions of the body, people with ostomies have a particular experience of caring for the self that engages with the knowledge and language they receive from doctors and nurses. We unpack how that medical and surgical knowledge, nursing knowledge, and a knowledge of the self are all impacted by the language and expertise in this system of medical care. We explore the concept of ostomy work: the ongoing, often invisible, embodied process of normalizing ostomies in daily life through carefully curated expertise and practice. We conclude with a discussion of the importance of specialized care nurses (WOCN) to empower people with ostomies to find a sense of normalcy and control in their ongoing ostomy care.