Research opportunity: Palliative care in the Netherlands

Joep van de Geer, advisor at the foundation for palliative care Agora, is looking for a professor or internship coordinator working at a faculty such as history, medicine, or health sciences, who would be interested in collaborating on research into the (recent) history of palliative care in the Netherlands. The collaboration could take the form of a scientific internship.

The following are some potential themes for research:

• As a foundation, Agora has been operating for 20 years, and there is a wish to describe the foundation’s contribution in a structured manner.
• There has already been an initiative to describe the development of palliative care in broad terms, which has led to the creation of the Canon “Palliative care”, last updated in 2018.
• There is a need to better describe the development of palliative care, shown for example by the recently published biography of Els Borst, written by Nele Beyens. This biography describes what physician and politician Els Borst contributed to the regulations and practical development of euthanasia. The fact that she also laid the foundation for the development of modern palliative care has received little attention.

To discuss these themes and for any other information on this opportunity, contact Joep van de Geer directly at jvandegeer@agora.nl.