🩺 Nursing Question of the Day

Challenge yourself with one exam-style nursing question every day.

✅ Think carefully • ✅ Choose your answer • ✅ Then scroll down to check the explanation.

🩺 Ileostomy Stoma Assessment

🔎 Why is Ischemia correct?

A healthy new ileostomy should normally appear pink to red, moist, and shiny. This color indicates that the bowel tissue is receiving an adequate blood supply.

In this question, the stoma is described as pale, dusky, and cool. These are warning signs of reduced blood flow to the stoma, which indicates ischemia.

🩸 What should a normal stoma look like?

❌ Why are the other options incorrect?

A. Normal healing — Incorrect.
Mild swelling and edema can occur shortly after surgery, but a healthy stoma should remain pink/red and moist. Pallor, dusky coloration, and coolness are not expected signs of normal healing.

C. Retraction — Incorrect.
Retraction means the stoma pulls inward or becomes level with or below the surrounding skin. It is primarily a position/depth problem, not a description of poor tissue perfusion.

D. Infection — Incorrect.
Infection is more commonly associated with findings such as increasing redness, warmth, swelling, purulent drainage, pain, or fever. A pale, dusky, cool stoma points much more strongly toward compromised blood supply.

🚨 Nursing Significance

Stomal ischemia can progress to necrosis if blood flow is not restored. Therefore, a newly created stoma that becomes pale, dusky, or cool requires prompt assessment and notification of the surgical team/provider.

The nurse should assess the stoma’s color, moisture, temperature, appearance, and changes from the previous assessment, and document the findings.