Marie-José Gijsberts is a researcher at the EOLC Research Group of Vrije Universiteit Brussel & Ghent University. In 2002 she graduated summa cum laude as an MD at the Medical Faculty of VU University in Amsterdam. She completed training as an elderly care physician in 2005, and her training in Palliative Medicine at the University of Amsterdam and the VU Medical Center in Amsterdam in 2007. She conducted her PhD on Spiritual Care at the end of life in Dutch Nursing Homes and defended her thesis in 2015. She is a member of the core group of the Reference Group Spiritual Care of The European Association of Palliative Care (EAPC), and has published several papers on spiritual care, including a systematic review on Spiritual Care in European Countries. Next to her research and her work as a palliative care physician, she is engaged in interdisciplinairy training of spiritual care in palliative care.