Prof. dr. Erik Olsman

Erik Olsman (1980) graduated cum laude in theology and worked as chaplain in palliative care and mental health care. After his PhD study on hope in palliative care, he worked as postdoc researcher and senior lecturer in health care ethics and spiritual care, at university hospitals. His topics include quality of life, hope and despair, crisis, trauma, gender, narrative, hermeneutics, and (empirical) ethics in chronic and palliative care. He understands spiritual care in a broad sense, which implies a focus on what makes life meaningful, which includes spirituality, ethics and aesthetics. Spiritual care is inclusive, which means that it is provided to people with a variety of (non) religious and cultural backgrounds. His own faith, from which he draws inspiration, is Christian, or more specifically, Protestant.