Saturday, June 7, 1997

Ministers are taught how to listen to patients

By STEPHANIE SPELLERS / Scripps Howard News Service

The Rev. Fred Lehrer already knows that cancer can kill; That it can rip families apart; That they will look to him for a word of wisdom or comfort.

He's come to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville to figure out what to say ... even if it's nothing at all.

"They (the ill) need my friendship, some affirmation and support," he says. "I've got to make sure I'm serving them properly. It's very scary when lives are at stake."

Every Tuesday for the next few weeks, Lehrer will join pastors and religious leaders who bear a similar responsibility. Gathered around a table in the UT Medical Center cancer ward, they talk the truth with experts on cancer care.

Then they go out and practice what's been taught.

"A program that just gives you information will fail you," the Rev. Ronald Russell explains to his charges at the first meeting of the Clergy Residency in Cancer Care. "This program is about people. It may be challenging, but that's the way to do it."

As an oncology and hospice chaplain at the medical center, Russell has learned the hard way how to offer pastoral care when death looms near, whether it's been dealt by cancer or some other terminal disease.

It's not something you can learn out of a textbook, he warns. And it doesn't mean you have all the right words all the time.

"Sometimes, pastoral care is dispensing with the notion that I have to give an answer at all," he adds. "There may not be a fit word that makes everything all right. You just sit and listen."

That's a lot to ask of ministers who live by their words, and Russell knows it.

So he encourages clergy at the seminar to set aside some of their instincts and truly concentrate on patients.

"A chaplain attends to the circumstances of the patient with no agenda. Ministers concentrate on evangelism. But if you go in there already sure that, in five minutes, you'll spring something on them, you're not going to do well. ...The challenge we face is trying to understand their context and responding to that need."

Evan as they end their first session, the ministers were forced to meet that challenge. After a few hours of orientation, they fanned out to rooms and wards to start the real learning.

For his first call, the Rev. Steve Damos pokes his head into Room 607, where nurses were moving Grady Dagnan from a cot to a hospital bed.

Dagnan smiles wearily, and his wife, Betty, nods to invite the minister inside when things settle down.

The couple has weathered wars, children and more than 50 years of marriage, but Grady Dagnan's cancer is almost more than they can bear. A gruff World War II vet who cuts hair in his own barbershop, Dagnan learned two months ago that he had cancer and that it had already spread to vital organs like his lungs and pancreas.

Damos encourages the couple to talk about their early days together, the children and grandchildren they've enjoyed. Grady Dagnan broaches the subject of death himself, but after a look at his wife, his eyes began to run. "We'll be fine," he finally tells the Rev. Damos.

"He'll be OK," his wife echoes, reaching out to grasp her husband's limp hand.

A United Methodist minister, Damos chats, deciding not to pray or offer to read Scripture with the couple. The Dagnans later said that was just fine with them.

"Everybody's got to get to heaven their way," Grady Dagnan says.

"But you know," Betty Dagnan reflects, "it's just nice having someone come and talk and say they care."

If that's all they need, Damos says he's pleased he was able to provide it. "I'm not here to save souls or sell religion. I'm here to help them deal and to share God's strength."

(Stephanie Spellers writes for The Knoxville News Sentinel.)