The moral aspects of palliative care for cancer patients and the education of general practitioners.

Patient centered information on educational needs in palliative care is rare. Nevertheless we think this important, especially with respect to ethical issues. We will audio-tape 60 patient - careprovider conversations in palliative care for cancer patients.We will identify ethical issues in palliative care for cancer patients by analysis of verbal transcripts, using NUD.IST software and following the grounded theory-method of Strauss and Corbin. The grounded theory approach is a qualitative research method that uses a systematic set of procedures to develop an inductively derived grounded theory about a phenomenon. It is discoveredn developed, and provisionally verified through systematic data collection and analysis of data pertaining to that phenomenon. The verbatim transcript allow us to involve new data in the analysis in each stage of the research. The clarifying educational needs in the postgraduate education of general practitioners in palliative care for cancer patients will become possible by identification of practical consequences of the patient centered information on ethical issues inpalliative care gathered in the previous phase. This will be done in cooperation with expert educators.