Volume 41 Number 1
March forward
Elizabeth A Ayello and Laurent O Chabal
For referencing Ayello EA and Chabal LO. March forward. WCET® Journal 2021;41(1):7-8
It seems unbelievable that it has been over a year now that the COVID-19 virus has caused such changes in our nursing and personal lives. For nurses, preventing skin injuries by learning how to protect their faces while wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) became an important focus. There was a need for evidence-based guidelines to guide these practices. Nurses and other healthcare professionals were challenged with differential diagnosis between unexpected skin manifestations from COVID-19, for example purple toes versus deep tissue pressure injuries on the heels and feet or oral mucosal lesions. Nurses may have had their usual work assignments changed to other departments within their hospital or work setting. The hours were long, tiring and at times even physically and emotionally draining as nurses on the frontlines fought to keep critically ill persons alive or to sometimes be the only support ones able to be with the patient at the end of their life.
When their work was complete, there could also be differences in one’s personal life. Depending on your country regulations, there may be restrictions on gatherings, restaurant dining, travel in or out of one’s state/province/country, quarantine rules and, of course, whether or not a facial mask is required. It truly has been much to deal with in 1 year’s time, but nurses always seem to keep giving and move forward. Nurses keep hope alive. WCET® has heard some of your stories and we continue to be inspired and proud of you.
WCET® is an organisation that was born out of the need to help people come to grasp with (at times) sudden changes that impacted many aspects of their life. Rather than looking backwards, the vision must always be what can we do today to make tomorrow better. Norma N. Gill and the early ET pioneers kept advancing with education and keeping the WCET® moving forward.
Your WCET® Executive Board (EB), an outstanding group of dedicated volunteers, have continued to keep the WCET® progressing forward over the last year. The 2020–2022/2024 elections were held. For the first time, WCET® has a President- Elect, Laurent Chabal, who will become the next president in 2022. As our in-person EB meeting had to be postponed for safety reasons due to COVID-19, the former EB members (Alison Crawshaw, Denise Hibbert, Arum Pratiwi and Karen Bruton) became mentors to the newly elected EB members (Diana Gallagher, Yajuan (Julie) Weng, Aihua (Alice) Chen). We thank them for their ongoing commitment of time and service to the WCET®. This mentorship has proven to be a very good process. Please look for an email in the next few months calling for nominations for the 2022–2026 President Elect position.
With the postponement of the October 2020 WCET®/ASCN-UK Joint Congress in Glasgow, Dee Waugh, Congress and Meeting Coordinator, and other EB members set about planning and implementing the first ever all-day education day and journal supplement. By all accounts it was a huge success. We once again thank our five webinar sponsors in alphabetical order: Calmoseptine, Coloplast, ConvaTec, Eakin and Hollister. Like many other events last year, our celebration of the 40th anniversary of the WCET® Journal was changed to a special journal supplement. Despite some malicious technological interruptions, the webinar and the first ever virtual general business meeting took place. All of us at WCET® just kept moving forward.
Another unexpected disruption from COVID-19 had to do with the journal. Usually there are journals that are returned due to incomplete addresses (see Figure 1). Due to the pandemic, mail to and from some countries was interrupted and our publisher received far more returns than usual (Figure 2). This could be for a variety of reasons. One, of course, is that the member’s mailing address may be incomplete or not up to date. It is very important that all WCET® members check that their address in the member profile is correct and complete. This is especially important if you move – you must update your address. For example, our publisher just received the extraordinary return of a journal posted 2½ years ago to a member in China.
Figure 1. Usual number of journal returns due to incomplete addresses.
Figure 2. Number of journal returns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to COVID-19, poor postal services may also be responsible. For example, check out this website: https://auspost.com.au/service-updates/international-delivery-updates. Some of these returns are from countries that are not taking deliveries at the moment for COVID-19 reasons, e.g. Ghana. The USPS has similar restrictions: https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/welcome.htm. While WCET® regrets if you did not receive your journal copy, postal restrictions are beyond our control. Please remember that you can always access the electronic version of the WCET® Journal from the WCET® website. Again, while WCET® hopes that the postal delivery service disruptions due to COVID-19 will be short-lived, we encourage all our members to please make sure that their mailing address is complete and current in their member profile.
Also regarding the journal, we are grateful to Calmoseptine for once again being the sponsor for the translation of the WCET® Journal into Portuguese.
We are also grateful that the International Interprofessional Wound Care Group (IIWCG) continues to have the WCET® Journal as its official journal. Thank you IIWCG president Gulnaz Tariq and Associate editor Hiske Smart. WCET® is also a supporting society for the World Union of Wound Healing Societies; we look forward to the WUWHS congress in Abu Dhabi 1–5 March 2022.
Perth, Australia has been ablaze with fires in early 2021. WCET® is grateful that our journal editor, Jenny Prentice, her family and home were spared. Equally amazing is that our publisher, Greg Paull’s father-in-law’s house was left unharmed while the houses on either side of his were burned to the ground. 2021 certainly continues to confront us with new situations that requires us to rise to the occasion.
The WCET® managed to complete and published the second edition of the International Ostomy Guideline (IOG) in late December 2020. Thank you again to Karen Spencer and Hollister for your continuing educational grant so that WCET® could develop the IOG 2020. Also, thanks to Paula Erwin-Toth and Diane Krasner, an updated 3rd edition of the Festschrift for Norma N Gill-Thompson which relates the growth and evolution of ET nursing as a nursing specialty worldwide was released. Both the IOG 2020 and the Commemorative Festschrift book are available from the WCET® online store.
Another unexpected change was the resignation of Jen Wood in late October; this required WCET® to evaluate our management company needs. After a thorough search, based on criteria, the EB decided that McKenna Management was the best match for WCET® at this time. We thank Graham Hauck and his staff at Hauck and Associates for all they have done for the WCET® over the past years. After a quick transition period, McKenna and Associates ‘hit the ground running’ and officially began as our management company on 1 February 2021. Welcome Karen Regan as the WCET® Administration Director. We plan to have more details about this new management team in the next issue of the 2021 WCET® BullETin, the magazine for WCET® members.
WCET® has kept in touch virtually with associations that have invited us to participate in their conferences/congresses. WCET® had a virtual booth at the WoundCon conference held last October 2020. Both Presidents Tariq and Ayello were keynote speakers. Our members can attend WoundCon Spring 2021 for free which opens on 12 March 2021. For more information, please go to https://woundcon.com. WCET® was also invited to send virtual greetings for the start of Dr Santos’ wound course in Brazil as well as for the ceremony for the installation of officers for SOBEST. Several WCET® EB members (Denise Hibbert, Yajuan (Julie) Weng, as well as Laurent Chabal and Elizabeth Ayello) were also invited to be speakers at the Portuguese Stomatherapy Nurses Association (A.P.E.C.E) in February 2021. Thank you Dee for working with our management company to arrange the booth at this virtual conference as well as at the NPIAP Conference in March 2021 and Wound Con Spring 2021.
As we go to press with this issue of the journal, unfortunately, WCET® and ASCN-UK have had to make the difficult decision to move the joint Congress to 2024. We did this out of an abundance of precaution for the safety of our members and delegates. Major reasons included that the Convention Centre in Glasgow is still being used as a hospital and the relentless emergence of variant forms of the COVID-19 virus.
We are working to plan the 2022 Congress and when the details are known we will share them with you.
Whether for our patients or our association, one of the mindsets of the WCET® is working today for a better tomorrow. The news that there are vaccines available certainly gives us hope that, someday soon, we can once again safely gather together to celebrate all that is great about the WCET®. The most important thing that we want all of you to know is that, despite COVID-19, WCET® continues to thrive and keeps on moving forward with our important work. We know it may not be easy, but we hope that all can ‘keep calm and carry on’.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth and Laurent
继续前行
Elizabeth A Ayello and Laurent O Chabal
COVID-19病毒给我们的护理工作和个人生活带来了巨大的变化，如今，一年已逝，真是令人难以置信。对于护士而言，了解如何在穿戴个人防护装备（PPE）的同时保护自己的面部，进而预防皮肤损伤，已成为一个重要的主题。需要制定循证指南来指导这些实践。护士和其他专业医护人员面临着鉴别诊断COVID-19引起的各种非预期皮肤表现的挑战，例如，紫色脚趾与足跟和足部的深部组织压力性损伤或口腔黏膜病变。护士们的常规工作任务可能已经转移到医院或工作环境中的其他部门进行。工作时间长、令人疲惫，有时甚至让护士身心俱疲，因为在一线的护士们奋力维持着危重患者的生命，有时是唯一能在患者生命最后一刻陪伴他们的支持者。
在完成工作后，他们的个人生活也可能和普通人不同。根据所在国家的规定，可能会有聚会、餐厅就餐、进入/离开自己所在州/省/国家、检疫规定的限制，当然还有是否要求佩戴口罩的限制。在一年的时间里，有很多需要处理的事情，但护士似乎总是在不断地付出和前行。护士让希望永驻。WCET®听过你们的一些故事，我们继续受到你们的鼓舞并为你们感到骄傲。
WCET®是一个为了帮助人们了解并应对影响其生活许多方面的（不时）突然变化而诞生的组织。与其向后回首，我们的视野必须永远是着眼于今天，创造美好的明天。Norma N. Gill和早期的ET先驱们不断推进教育，使WCET®不断向前发展。
WCET®执行委员会（EB）是一个由乐于奉献的志愿者组成的杰出团体，在过去的一年里，一直推动着WCET®的进步。2020-2022/2024年的选举已经举行。WCET®首次有了一位候任主席-Laurent Chabal，她将在2022年成为下一任主席。由于COVID-19的影响，出于安全考虑，我们的现场EB会议不得不推迟，前任EB成员（Alison Crawshaw、Denise Hibbert、Arum Pratiwi和Karen Bruton）成为新当选EB成员（Diana Gallagher、翁亚娟[Julie Weng]和Aihua（Alice）Chen）的导师。我们衷心感谢他们一直以来为WCET®所投入的时间和提供的服务。事实证明，这种指导是一个很好的过程。在接下来的数月中，敬请期待收到一封呼吁提名2022-2026年候任主席职位人选的电子邮件。
原计划于2020年10月在格拉斯哥举行的WCET®/ASCN-UK联合大会推迟举行，因此大会及会议协调人Dee Waugh和其他EB成员着手计划和实施了有史以来首次全天教育日和杂志增刊。从各方面来看，这是一个巨大的成功。我们再次感谢网络研讨会的五个赞助商，按字母顺序排列分别为：Calmoseptine、Coloplast、ConvaTec、Eakin和Hollister。我们庆祝《WCET®杂志》40周年的活动也和去年的许多其他活动一样，改为特别杂志增刊。尽管发生了一些恶意的技术中断，我们仍举行了网络研讨会和有史以来首次虚拟一般事务会议。WCET®的所有人都在奋力继续前行。
因COVID-19导致的另一个意外中断与杂志有关。通常会有杂志因地址信息不完整而被退回（见图1）。由于大流行的影响，一些国家的邮件往来中断，我们的出版商收到的退回杂志异常多（图2）。这可能有多种原因。当然，其中一个原因是会员的邮寄地址可能不完整或未更新。请所有WCET®会员务必检查自己在会员资料中的地址是否正确和完整，这一点十分重要。如果您搬家了，您必须更新自己的地址，这一点尤为重要。例如，我们的出版商最近收到了一本2年半前寄给一位中国会员的杂志退回，这太惊人了。
图1.由于地址信息不完整而通常导致的杂志退回数量。
图2.COVID-19大流行期间的杂志退回数量。
由于COVID-19的影响，邮政服务不佳也可能是原因之一。例如，我们访问了以下网站：https://auspost.com.au/service-updates/international-delivery-updates。结果发现，其中有些退回是因COVID-19的原因而暂时不接受投递的国家，比如加纳。美国邮政总局（USPS）也有类似的限制，在以下网站也可以查到：https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/welcome.htm。如果您没有收到杂志，WCET®感到很遗憾，但邮寄限制是我们无法控制的。请记住，您可以随时从WCET®网站上访问获取《WCET®杂志》的电子版。再次提醒，WCET®希望由于COVID-19造成的邮政递送服务中断是短暂的，同时，我们鼓励所有会员确保自己在会员资料中的邮寄地址是完整且最新的。
此外，我们衷心感谢Calmoseptine再次成为《WCET®杂志》葡萄牙语翻译的赞助商。
我们也感谢国际跨专业伤口护理组（IIWCG）继续将《WCET®杂志》作为官方杂志。感谢IIWCG主席Gulnaz Tariq和副主编Hiske Smart。WCET®也是世界伤口愈合学会联盟的支持学会；我们期待着2022年3月1日-5日在阿布扎比召开的WUWHS大会。
2021年初，澳大利亚珀斯发生大火。WCET®感恩我们的杂志编辑Jenny Prentice、她的家属和住所都幸免于难。同样令人欣慰的是，我们的出版商Greg Paull的岳父的住所也完好无损，而他住所两旁的房屋却被烧成废墟。2021年我们无疑会面临新的形势，需要我们努力应对这些情况。
WCET®于2020年12月底成功完成并出版了《国际造口指南》（IOG）第二版。再次感谢Karen Spencer和Hollister继续提供教育资助，使得WCET®能够编写IOG 2020。此外，感谢Paula Erwin-Toth和Diane Krasner，为Norma N Gill-Thompson纪念文集更新第三版的发行作出了贡献，该纪念文集介绍了ET护理作为一个护理专业在全球的发展和演变。IOG 2020和纪念文集均可在WCET®的在线商店购买。
另一个意想不到的变化是Jen Wood在10月底辞职；为此，WCET®不得不针对我们对于管理公司的需求开展评估。经过详尽的调查，根据标准，EB决定McKenna Management是目前WCET®的最佳选择。我们感谢Graham Hauck和他在Hauck and Associates的工作人员，感谢他们在过去几年中为WCET®所做的一切。经过短暂的过渡期后，McKenna and Associates“着手开始工作”，于2021年2月1日正式成为我们的管理公司。欢迎Karen Regan担任WCET®的行政总监。我们计划在下一期的2021年WCET®会员杂志《WCET® BullETin》中对这个新的管理团队进行更多详细的介绍。
WCET®与邀请我们参加其会议/大会的协会以虚拟方式保持着联系。WCET®在去年2020年10月举行的WoundCon会议上有一个虚拟展位。Tariq和Ayello两位主席均是主旨演讲人。我们的会员可免费参加2021年3月12日开幕的2021年WoundCon春季会议。有关更多信息，请访问https://woundcon.com。WCET®还受邀为Santos博士在巴西的伤口课程的启动以及SOBEST的官员就职仪式以虚拟方式送上问候。几位WCET®的EB成员（Denise Hibbert、翁亚娟[Julie Weng]以及Laurent Chabal和Elizabeth Ayello）还受邀在2021年2月的葡萄牙造口治疗护士协会（Portuguese Stomatherapy Nurses Association，A.P.E.C.E）上发表演讲。感谢Dee与我们的管理公司合作，在本次虚拟会议以及2021年3月的NPIAP会议和2021年的WoundCon春季会议上安排展位。
很遗憾，在本期杂志付梓之时，WCET®和ASCN-UK不得不做出艰难的决定，将联合大会改在2024年举行。我们这样做是出于对会员和代表安全的充分考虑。主要原因包括格拉斯哥的会议中心仍作为医院使用，以及COVID-19病毒变异形式的不断出现。
我们正在努力计划2022年的大会，在细节明晰后，我们将与大家分享。
无论是为了我们的患者还是为了我们的协会，WCET®的理念之一就是，为了更好的明天而努力做好今天。有可用疫苗的新闻无疑给了我们希望，不久后的某一天，我们可以再次安全地共聚一堂，庆祝WCET®的所有重要活动。我们想让大家知道的最重要的事情是，尽管COVID-19仍在肆虐，WCET®会继续发展壮大，继续带着我们的重要使命前行。我们知道这可能并不容易，但我们希望所有人都能够“保持冷静，继续前行”。
谨上，
Elizabeth 和 Laurent
Author(s)
Elizabeth A Ayello
PhD, RN, ETN, CWON, MAPWCA, FAAN
WCET® President 2020–2022
Laurent O Chabal
BSc (CBP), RN, OncPall (Cert), Dip (WH), ET
WCET® President Elect 2020–2022
