Special to OWM: A Caring Tribute

Norma Justus Mash died February 17, 2014. She was a pioneer ET nurse whose passion grew as the specialty developed and proliferated over her lifetime. Over the years, she provided specialty ET nursing services across the spectrum of CARE: she was a Clinician, Administrator, Researcher, and Educator who championed prevention, preservation, prescription, and palliation. She served the majority of her nursing career at Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, GA. She began the ostomy, wound, and continence program, including an ostomy support group. She was a member of the SouthEast Region and served as the Regional President and their National Trustee to the International Association for Enterostomal Therapy (IAET). In the latter capacity, she chaired the Standards Committee for the organization, which developed and published nationwide standards for the nursing care of patients with ostomies, wounds, and incontinence as well as for ET nursing practice. Norma spiritedly and conscientiously typified the CARE-ing model of professional ET nursing practice (ostomy, wound, and continence nursing).

Clinician
Norma’s clinical skills were legion. She directed care for patients with ostomies, tubes, wounds, and incontinence. She was one of the first to identify the variety of alterations in skin and tissue integrity that can occur in the sacral region. Most importantly, she always looked at the whole patient and not just the hole(s) in our special population.

Administrator
Norma developed plans, policies, procedures, and protocols focused on positive outcomes for patients with ostomies, wounds, and incontinence. She instituted an audit system to ensure ongoing quality and to evaluate areas for improvement. Her love for her patients was infectious; she drew others into the fold.

Researcher
Using all resources at her disposal, Norma sought the most current findings on patients with ostomies, wounds, and incontinence. She was dedicated to sharing this information with colleagues locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally, a prolific clinical investigator ever seeking products for her unique patients.

Educator
In 1957, Norma earned a BSN from Emory University School of Nursing in Atlanta, but her education did not end there. She returned 20 years later to complete their ET Nursing Education Program. Her respect for education was evident in her desire to share knowledge however possible. She authored numerous paper and podium presentations and lectured across the US, Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. Her audience included not only professionals but patients and family members.

Norma coauthored one of the first nursing books on quality assurance: Nursing Audit; authored articles for Ostomy Wound Management; and wrote a chapter (Standards and Protocols for Pressure Ulcer Care) for the first edition of the text Chronic Wound Care. She maintained simultaneous membership in the IAET/WOCN, European Wound Management Association, and Sigma Theta Tau. She also was a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care (AAWC). It was a great honor to share the IAET Presidents Award with her in the spring of 1989. In the fall of that year, she was named the SouthEast Region ET Nurse of the Year. She maintained professional memberships and active ET nursing certification until she was disabled by multiple sclerosis.

Personal Passions
In addition to her dedication to her field, Norma was passionate about her family and her faith; the latter compelled her to live her life in service to others. Beside her many church apostolates, she was active in parent-teacher associations, the Red Cross, and the Garden Club.

Her husband Jim and their three children — Bryan, Alan, and Alison — were the light of her life. She was so proud of their accomplishments. She not only drew other nurses into the fold of ET nursing but converted her retired, engineer husband into her own private home care nurse. A stay-at-home mom, she kept her finger in the nursing field by working one night a week until she began her ET nursing career after her children were grown.

Norma was a woman of commitment and integrity. I was proud to call her a colleague and a compatriot...a fellow and a friend...a peer and a pal. She dared to CARE. She will be missed by the ET nursing community and her beloved family