Patient Skin Care: Protecting the Body’s Largest Organ (Podcast)

Mary Montague-McCown, DNP, APRN, ACNS-BC, CWOCN, began her nursing career on a medical-surgical unit, she was immediately drawn to work done by the enterostomal therapists (ET) providing ostomy care.

“I was fascinated every time the ET nurse came onto the floor and saw a patient,” she recalls. “So I just made it my business to go into the room when she was on the floor to see what she was doing.”

In 1996, Montague-McCown followed her passion and became a wound, ostomy and continence (WOC) nurse. Today, she is program manager of the wound, ostomy and continence nursing program at Cleveland Clinic.

“I’ve loved every single moment, and I’ve enjoyed the learning,” she says. She’s equally enthusiastic about teaching other caregivers about the importance of skin care.

In this episode of Cleveland Clinic’s Nurse Essentials podcast, Montague-McCown shares insight on the topic. She covers:

• The basics of skin assessment and care
• The impact of incontinence on skin health
• Pressure injury prevention measures and methods for healing wounds
• When clinical nurses should consult with wound, ostomy and continence nurses
• What WOC nurse training entails

Click the podcast player above to listen to the episode now, or read on for a short, edited excerpt. Check out more Nurse Essentials episodes at my.clevelandclinic.org/podcasts/nurse-essentials or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast excerpt

Podcast host Carol Pehotsky, DNP, RN, NEA-BC: What are some things as nurses we need to be really paying close attention to?

Montague-McCown: Well, I think the first thing is we can generally incorporate a good skin – and I'm not talking about a detailed skin assessment –but looking at the skin with our other daily activities. So, as we're listening to our patients' lungs, we can be aware of what the skin is looking like on the posterior. Because we know those are generally the areas where we see skin breakdown.

So, incorporating just looking at the skin into our daily routine. Understanding that well-nourished, well-moisturized skin is going to be less prone to breakdown than very dry, flaky, open skin.

So, you know, keeping in mind back to the basics. Daily bathing. Moisturizing the skin is so important that I think it's overlooked more than it should. But those things keep the skin in good condition.