Elise Sørensen
{{Short description|Danish nurse and inventor of the colostomy bag}}
Elise Sørensen (Kalundborg, 2 July 1903 – Ordrup, 5 July 1977){{Cite web|url=http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/170/bio/1483/|work=Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon|title=Elise Sørensen|date=22 April 2023|access-date=7 April 2025|language=Danish}} was a Danish nurse and the inventor of the colostomy bag.{{cite book |last1=Fazio |first1=Victor W. |last2=Church |first2=James M. |last3=Wu |first3=James S. |title=Atlas of Intestinal Stomas |date=2012 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=9780387788500 |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NfMLWQN5udYC&q=Elise+S%C3%B8rensen+colostomy&pg=PA3 |accessdate=28 July 2018 |language=en}}
Life and career
Sørensen was born on 2 July 1903 in Kalundborg to Valdemar Sofus and Ane Dorthea (née Andersen) and was educated in Holbæk and Viborg. She worked as a home care nurse from 1929, including over twenty years at a health insurance company in Ordrup-Skovshoved.
In 1953 her sister had an ostomy operation (a procedure that takes the end of the intestine out through the abdomen, allowing waste to exit via a surgically created stoma).{{Cite web|url=http://gravsted.dk/person.php?navn=elisesoerensen|title=Elise Sørensen|website=gravsted.dk|access-date=27 July 2018}} After the operation, Sørensen's sister was uncomfortable going outside due to fear that stoma might leak, due to the metal/glass capsules or fabric/rubber bags that people used at the time.{{Cite web|url=https://www.coloplast.co.uk/About-us/Landing-pages/60th_forward_together_hcps/|title=Forward together with healthcare professionals everywhere|publisher=Coloplast|access-date=27 July 2018}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/826122_4|title=Quiz: A Nurse Invented That? Inventiveness, Ingenuity, and Innovation in Nurses|first=Laura A.|last=Stokowski|date=June 6, 2014|work=Medscape|access-date=27 July 2018}} Sørensen then created the world's first disposable ostomy bag attachable through an adhesive ring.{{Cite web|url=https://www.guideservicedanmark.dk/soerensen-elise|title=Sørensen, Elise|publisher=Guideservice Denmark|access-date=7 April 2025}} With help from a lawyer from the Danish Nurses' Association, she applied for a patent for her invention in 1954 and approached the plastics manufacturer Aage Louis-Hansen for assistance with putting the bag into wider production. Louis-Hansen initially declined, but was persuaded to agree by his wife, Johanne Louis-Hansen, who was also a nurse and saw the clinical need. Sørensen paid for the initial manufacturing costs herself and oversaw testing of the bags on patients at various institutions. Louis-Hansen founded the company Coloplast in 1957 on the basis of Sørensen's invention.
Sørensen ceased working in 1957 due to issues with depression. She died on 5 July 1977 in a psychiatric hospital where she had spent her final years.
References
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