ICEOL Newsletter
Volume 2, Issue 2
Reflection from
ICEOL Director Richard Payne, MD
At ICEOL, we firmly believe that clergy and clinician communication and collaboration are key to a quality end-of-life experience for patients and families. To this end, we recently co-hosted a community forum in Harnett County, N.C., with Hospice of Harnett County, Inc., and Campbell Divinity School to explore this very issue with more than 80 local faith leaders and health care providers. The discussion was rich and, as you can imagine, identified both barriers and opportunities to strengthening these relationships. Among the barriers, lack of training about how to minister in these situations rose to the surface for clergy. Clinicians spoke about not understanding the role of clergy or how to work together. Mutual respect and authentic communication were identified as necessary factors for a successful partnership. In the months to come, ICEOL will continue to probe this topic and share the wisdom that emerges. If you have questions about the institute’s work or would like to share your thoughts on this topic, please send them to ICEOL@div.duke.edu.
Resource Spotlight
Jewish Ritual, Reality and Response: A Guide to Caring for Jewish Patients and Families, recently published by ICEOL and written by Rabbi Mark A. Popovsky, introduces Jewish beliefs and practices around illness, death and loss and provides practical suggestions for responding to the sometimes complicated situations where the clinical, religious and cultural are entwined. For more information and to order, visit www.iceol.duke.edu.
Vesta, a Bryan Harnetiaux play, offers a warm and often humorous exploration of a family’s struggle with the loss of a loved one. This play and a complete production package including a program and marketing materials are available for use by hospices, churches and other organizations interested in using the arts to spark dialogue about end-of-life issues. E-mail ICEOL@div.duke.edu to learn about producing Vesta in your community.
Newsletter Archives
ICEOL Update Fall 2007
Pamphlet Offers Tips for Providing Spiritual Support
Offering Spiritual Support for Family and Friends is a new resource developed by Caring Connections, a program of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, in collaboration with ICEOL. This four-page pamphlet provides practical information on the spiritual issues people with serious illnesses face and concrete examples of how to provide support. It highlights that along with clergy, chaplains and other spiritual leaders, family and friends are often an important source of spiritual support. “You do not have to be an expert in spiritual care to offer support. This pamphlet has tips for anyone acting as a companion to someone with a serious illness,” said Jeanne Twohig, ICEOL deputy director.
ICEOL Conference on Jewish Traditions Resonates
Over 155 attended ICEOL’s May conference, “Magnified and Sanctified: Jewish Ritual, Reality and Response.” Jewish and non-Jewish clinicians, community members, chaplains, scholars and rabbis came together to explore Judiasm’s approach to life’s end and the implications for caregiving. “I have no doubt that people walked away from this conference more knowledgeable about Judaism’s rich traditions and better prepared to care for Jewish patients and their families,” reports Richard Payne, M.D., ICEOL director. ICEOL has published a guide that dives deep into the topics of the conference, Jewish Ritual, Reality and Response at the End of Life: A Guide to Caring for Jewish Patients and Their Families. The guide is now available for sale.
ICEOL Awards Research Grants
This summer, ICEOL awarded two Duke faculty $15,000 to pursue research on end-of-life issues related to the intersection of spirituality and health care and the care for vulnerable populations. Richard Lischer, Ph.D., James T. and Alice Mead Cleland Professor of Preaching at Duke Divinity School, is exploring and writing a book on suffering and dying well as a practice of the church. The other recipient, Donald H. Taylor, Jr., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University, is conducting a pilot study looking at same-sex caregiving during terminal illness. ICEOL awarded its first of 14 research grants in 2001 and revived the program this year after seeing first-hand that these small grants often help local researchers leverage additional funding and result in important contributions to the field.
Clergy Want Help Providing End-of-Life Care
A recent ICEOL survey of more than 900 clergy from across the country finds that clergy want and need more education, information and resources on serious illness, end of life and grief to better support their congregations. Among the specific findings, while nearly two-thirds of respondents identify educational programs related to serious illness, end of life, caregiving and grief as key to improving congregational care, less than 20 percent are doing so. Additionally, only 39 percent were very comfortable training lay leaders to provide support or organizing lay caregiving support for practical, emotional and spiritual needs. “We are using these and other survey findings to develop a ‘tool-kit’ of resources for clergy and lay leaders so that they can better address end-of-life care issues in their congregations,” reports Jeanne Twohig, M.P.A., ICEOL deputy director. The findings from this survey were presented at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s July conference, “Caring for Mind, Body and Spirit: Psychological, Bereavement and Spiritual Needs at the End of Life.” For more information about this survey or the tool-kit, email us at ICEOL@div.duke.edu.
Divinity Students Explore End-of-Life Care
ICEOL continues its efforts to support students by establishing opportunities for Duke Divinity students to explore end-of-life issues from practical and scholarly perspectives. This summer, ICEOL connected four students with experiences providing direct care and support to people at life’s end. Two students, Susan Eldon (D’09) and Justin Morgan (D’09), worked with United Hospice chaplains and one, Anne Wagoner (D’10), worked with United Hospice and a local parish to build a bridge between the two organizations. The other student, Holly Gaudette (D’08), worked at Butner Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C., where she established a bereavement group and continued work by an earlier divinity student to help the prison receive an official hospice designation for its work with sick and dying inmates. ICEOL also named Aaron Klink (D’08), the 07-08 Westbrook Scholar. Klink was chosen through a competitive process and will receive some financial support to work with ICEOL staff to explore a variety of end-of-life issues. “The Westbrook Scholarship is an extraordinary opportunity and I will use it to explore the ways medicine and theology can work together to help individuals families, religious, and medical professionals cooperate to navigate the complex emotional, medical, and spiritual terrain surrounding the end of life,” reports Klink.
ICEOL Supports Current and Future Chaplains
Miriam Saxon and Stanley Kim are spending the year as chaplain residents at Duke University Hospital learning how to provide spiritual support to patients and families at the end of life. This end-of-life residency is offered through the hospital’s Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program. ICEOL is providing some financial support as well as connecting the residents with various end-of-life care resources and learning opportunities. This training brings Saxon and Kim to the bedside of sick and dying patients and allows them to develop a new awareness of the ministry of end-of-life care. Selected through a nationally competitive process, they will split their pastoral care training between Duke University Hospital and Duke Hospice where they will serve as chaplain trainees and receive guidance from a certified CPE supervisor. “Concentrating my training in end-of-life care has been a wonderful gift that is not available from other CPE programs. The recognition that quality end-of-life care comes not just from the medical side has been refreshing,” offered Kim. Both Saxon and Kim are considering careers in this area.
The Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life is supported, in part, by the generosity of the VITAS Foundation for End-of-Life Care.