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FEATURE:
Compassion Sabbath
June 15, 2001 Episode no. 442
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REV.
DIANE QUAINTANCE (Minister, Presbyterian Village Church): And so I invite
you to begin to think about your own end of life; your wishes, your hopes, your
fears with those whom you love.
NORMA QUARLES: Preparing for a good death -- it's a topic now being discussed
from the pulpit.
REV. DIANE QUAINTANCE (Minister, Presbyterian Village Church): Though we
don't know when or where or how, death will come to every person. It comes to
saint and scoundrel. It comes in the dark of night and the light of day. It comes
as a welcome transition to some and as a stunning shock to others.
QUARLES: Ministers such as Diane Quaintance of the Presbyterian Village
Church in Kansas City, Missouri, are beginning to talk about death and dying as
part of the growing "Compassion Sabbath" movement -- it's a way to tend to the
emotional, medical, and spiritual needs of the dying.
Begun two years ago, the goal is to improve end-of-life care in the United States.
Groups in 24 states now participate in the program.
The Reverend Charles Beaty was one of the original organizers of Compassion Sabbath.
At 34, he has already come to terms with his views on death and dying both as
a minister and as a person facing a life-threatening illness.
REV.
CHARLES BEATY (International Mission Board): I've got terminal cancer. I could
still be going around thinking I was immortal, living that way. But like people
in this hospital where I am who are in their eighties and nineties, they're all
facing death because it's on their doorstep.
QUARLES: Most of Beaty's time is now spent on spreading the message of
Compassion Sabbath.
REV. BEATY: What they need is someone to love, to minister to them into
the door of death and to the next life, which is the real life. And, they need
someone to help them with that.
QUARLES: The movement grew out of a 1995 study on dying funded by the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation.
MS.
MYRA CHRISTOPHER (CEO and President, Midwest Bioethics Center): What they
learned was that people in this country die alone, isolated in intensive care
units, on average for 10 days. Those who are conscious, most of them [are] in
pain at the time of their death and unable to get appropriate pain treatment.
We can manage pain. There is no excuse for that.
QUARLES: The study also found that often patient's wishes, such as their
living wills, were being totally ignored. A third of the families studied were
financially devastated by heroic but unwanted life support efforts.
Moreover, even clergy admitted that they had been ill-prepared in seminary to
deal with death.
REV.
KELVIN CALLOWAY (St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church): We had the
intuitive feeling that many of our colleagues were not as effective in this ministry
as they could be.
QUARLES: Frances Krouse's husband, on life support, has been close to death
five times.
MS. FRANCES KROUSE: I have yet to hear a minister ask me, "How are you
dealing with this? How is your daughter dealing with this? The family?" What about
their grief, what about their care, what about their spirituality?
QUARLES: To reform end-of-life care, the Midwest Bioethics Center, under
the direction of Myra Christopher, decided to concentrate on clergy.
BEATY: We as ministers, need to show our congregations that we're very
afraid of this, and we're just like them. But that there is a hope that God's
gonna be there for them; that they can trust Him to get them through this.
QUARLES: So far, more than 900 clergy have attended Compassion Sabbath
workshops in Kansas City.
MS. CHRISTOPHER: Clergy do want to be involved. They are hungry for information.
They want to take leadership. And, once they feel confident, then, in fact, the
things that they are inspiring their congregations to do are so much more creative
and substantive.
QUARLES: Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish communities are all participating
in Compassion Sabbath.
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MS. CHRISTOPHER: The things that have happened have been just marvelous.
Visitation ministry being created -- organized and created, ministry to people
who are shut-ins, grief and bereavement programs being established.
QUARLES: According to those involved in this initiative, there is hard
as well as lots of anecdotal evidence to prove that Compassion Sabbath is working
here in Kansas City, improving care to those at the end of their lives.
And, it's reach is spreading -- working with Compassion Sabbath, Duke University's
Divinity School designed a new program to instruct seminary students in the care
of the dying.
DR.
KEITH MEADOR (Duke University): The two major issues that are important to
persons who are dying are pain management and being at peace with God, spiritual
care.
QUARLES: One conference Duke organized discussed how end-of-life care is
culturally different for African Americans than for whites.
DR. KARLA HOLLOWAY (Duke University): We die a color-coded death. The residue
of riots, executions, suicides, targeted medical neglect, a range of bodily violence.
QUARLES: This has bred to a suspicion of unequal medical treatment.
DR.
HOLLOWAY: And so that divide between the black community and the medical community
certainly needs to be bridged. But it needs to bridged with an understanding of
the history of institutional neglect that is often felt very strongly in the black
community.
REV. CALLOWAY: Nobody gets out of here alive.
QUARLES: Because of that suspicion, African Americans want heroic measures
taken at the end-of-life and generally reject hospices.
Compassion Sabbath is attempting to use the ministers as a bridge between African
Americans and the medical community.
REV. CALLOWAY: It is the challenge for clergy to be a part of the health
care delivery team.
QUARLES: The Bioethics Center at Tuskegee University in Alabama has embraced
Compassion Sabbath. It was formed as part of a U.S. government apology for its
notorious syphilis study, from 1932 to 1972, in which more than 300 African Americans
were deliberately untreated.
Marian Gray Secundy is the director.
MARIAN
GRAY SECUNDY (Director, Bioethics Center, Tuskegee University): We are sweeping
the state of AlabamaÉattempting right now to get a picture of what it is that
the black church, particularly the black ministers, feel about the issues of dying.
What they're doing with their congregations, how they're doing it. What they feel
and want.
QUARLES: So the issues being grappled with by clergy, congregations, and
theology students deal with pain management, physician assisted suicide, and dying
with dignity -- issues that many in the Compassion Sabbath movement feel are key
to a "good death."
For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Norma Quarles.
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Related Book:
ADVANCE CARE PLANNING: RAISING END-OF-LIFE ISSUES
This "communication pocket guide for physicians" is published by the Park
Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics and can be ordered
online by visiting "Bookstore" at the site. Visit "Education" for information about the Center's future workshops for clergy and caregivers on "Spiritual Care at the End of Life: Professional Challenges."
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Related Links:
Midwest Bioethics Center: "Compassion Sabbath Engages Communities in End-of-Life Issues"
This community-based ethics center in Kansas City, Missouri was founded "to
integrate ethical considerations into healthcare decision-making throughout
communities." The site includes answers to frequently asked questions about
Compassion Sabbaths, information about how to order resource kits and
manuals on developing a Compassion Sabbath program, and many links to sites
on related topics such as bereavement support, hospices, and counseling
about death.
Last Acts
"A national coalition to improve care and caring at the end of life."
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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care
Institute on Care at the End of Life
The Institute is based at Duke University Divinity School. Link here to news about
"Crossing Over Jordan," the recent Duke symposium on African Americans and care
at the end of life as well as other news about religion, ethics, and end-of-life
care. There are also links to related articles and medical material at the Duke
University Medical Center site.
PBS: ON OUR OWN TERMS: MOYERS ON DYING
Project on Death in America
The mission of this project of George Soros's Open Society Institute is "to
understand and transform the culture and experience of dying and bereavement
through initiatives in research, scholarship, the humanities, and the arts,
and to foster innovations in the provision of care, public education,
professional education, and public policy."
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