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The History of QT Boston / OAB Series - “In their own words”
CHAPTER IV - GOING NATIONAL
By 1956, QT Boston had become a model for new local ostomy chapters, and its members were thrust center stage in the initial steps toward forming a national organization of local chapters. A group of Boston members accepted an invitation from Morton Einstein, the president of QT New York, to attend a meeting at the Commodore Hotel in New York City. Central to all the sharing sessions at that meeting was the goal of collaboration to form a national organization.
Florence Cohen attended the meeting and recalls how Dolly Johnson, Edith Lenneberg, and she herself participated: "Edith's forte was organizing meetings and keeping them going over several months, and Dolly shared her recommendations about visiting new ostomates. I still recall Edith always reminding us humbly to 'be careful we don't take over the meeting and go in there as though we know absolutely everything”
Florence centered her own presentations around the uses of an appliance suitcase, a carrier common then but used less frequently these days.
The minutes of the meeting describe the major points Florence made: the importance of having a chapter appliance chairman in the first place, of ensuring that all visitors have in hand both a suitcase fully stocked and a knowledge about all of the appliances and accessories therein, and of soliciting later feedback - particularly negative - from ostomates. "If individual members have complaints about their equipment, they should voice them to their appliance chair, who can, in turn, pass them along to manufacturers and exert pressure for improvements," was her advice. Florence also recommended that chapters make local medical professionals and hospitals aware that experienced ostomy visitors can, as had those from the Boston chapter, help fit new patients with appropriate appliances.
Two sweeping motions came out of that meeting: One established two cooperative publications, the Ileostomy Quarterly and the Colostomy Quarterly, with local chapters cooperating in their actual publication yet remaining autonomous in determining content relevant to their specific readers. Edith Lenneberg accepted the editorship of the Ileostomy Quarterly. In her first editorial, she proved prophetic: "Unless [our] groups work as one, there is no gain appearing as one. The creation of this common publication into which will go the efforts of all groups was the central purpose of the convention, . . . to forge a national organization." (Note: The Colostomy Quarterly published but one issue, but with the leadership from Edith Lenneberg accepted the editorship of the Ileostomy Quarterly. In her first editorial, she proved prophetic: "Unless [our] groups work as one, there is no gain appearing as one. The creation of this common publication into which will go the efforts of all groups was the central purpose of the convention, . . . to forge a national organization."
(Note: The Colostomy Quarterly published but one issue, but with the leadership from Boston, its sister Ileostomy Quarterly thrived; after the founding of the UOA, it became the national publication, Ostomy Quarterly.)
The second motion coming out of the 1956 meeting in New York was the formation of a committee to work on plans for a national organization, a motion the Boston representatives found somewhat disappointing: It formed merely an "exploratory" committee, not the organization itself. The establishment of this intermediate "exploratory" group was a compromise addressing the disparate opinions about whether a national organization should include colostomates (who some felt "had no problems") or focus more on ileostomates. (The establishment of two separate publications as noted above had been an initial compromise bridging this difference of perspective.) Such a concern about "mixing ostomy types" had, yes, led to some confusion among patients and to conflicting experiences with appliances, but serious apprehensions and misunderstandings had been avoided at the meeting by clearly distinguishing between appliances and practices for ileostomates and those for colostomates.
The "exploratory" committee met twice, first in 1959, again in New York to define organizational objectives and procedures and a second time in Detroit in 1961 to draft a constitution and by-laws.
Sam Dubin became a self-appointed liaison and leader in the now-accelerating movement to form a national organization and initiated personal cross-country trips to visit ostomy groups.
He gave glowing reports about the "dedication" of ostomates he met and declared that "he lived for the day there would be a united ostomy group." These early organizational meetings were at times contentious (or in Norma Gill's recollection, spotted with "bickering"), but all representatives generally were working toward a "joining together" of chapters to form a national association.
The culminating moment was the United Ostomy Association constituting convention in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1962. Unfortunately Sam Dubin did not live to see his dream come true; he passed away only a month before the birth of the UOA.
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