The term bioethics generally refers to the study of the ways in which science and more particularly medicine influence our lives and our environment. It is fundamentally concerned with issues relating to the beginning and the end of human lives. This contribution describes an analysis of medical discourse in a palliative context, and more in particular it shows how trust is constructed between an oncologist and his terminal patients during follow-up visits in the academic hospital of Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Baier, Annette. 1986. “Trust and antitrust”. Trust and its varieties. Ethics 96 (2): 231-260. doi: doi.org/10.1086/292745.

Bos, Nancy. 2010. Het welbevinden van hartpatiënten en gezonde ouderen; de invloed van humor en type D persoonlijkheid. Universiteit Utrecht: Dissertation Klinische en gezondheidspsychologie.

Fiscella, Kevin, Sean Meldrum, Peter Franks, Cleveland G. Shields, C, Paul Duberstein, Susan H. McDaniel, and Ronald M. Epstein. 2004. “Patient trust: Is it related to patient-centered behavior of primary care physicians?” Medical Care 42 (11): 1049-1055. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2008.09.016.

Francke, Anneke L. 2004. Verscheidenheid en capaciteitsbenutting in palliatieve terminale zorgvoorziening. Nivel: z.u.

Gopichandran, Vijayaprasad, and Satish K. Chetlapalli. 2013. “Factors influencing trust in doctors: A community segmentation strategy for quality improvement in healthcare”. BMJ Open 3 (12): e004115. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004115.

Heynderickx, Priscilla, and Sylvain Dieltjens. 2004. “De lekkerste lekkernij. De hoerasfeer in lifestyle magazines: een case study van het woord lekker”. In Taeldeman, man van de taal, schatbewaarder van de taal. Liber Amicorum, edited by Johan De Caluwe, Georges De Schutter, Magda Devos and Jacques Van Keymeulen, 499-508. Gent: Vakgroep Nederlandse Taalkunde – Academia Press.

Hyde, Michael J., and Nancy M.P. King. 2010. “Communication ethics and bioethics: An interface”. Review of Communication 10 (2): 165-171. doi: 10.1080/15358590903370258.

Illingworth, Paul. 2002. “Trust: The scarcest of medical resources”. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 27 (1): 31-46. doi: 10.1076/jmep.27.1.31.2969.

Keirse, Emmanuel, Claire Beguin, Marianne Desmedt, Myriam Deveugele, Johan Menten, Steven Simoens, Johan Wens, Liesbeth Borgermans, Laurence Kohn, Bram Spinnewijn, Anne Cardinael, Betty Kutten, Paul Vanden Berghe, and Dominique Paulus. 2009. Organisation of Palliative Care in Belgium. Belgian Health Care Knowledge. Centre KCE reports 115C. https://kce.fgov.be/sites/default/files/atoms/files/d20091027342.pdf [22/10/2017]

Leyssen, Mia. 2004. “Empathie als instrument voor effectieve geneeskunde”. In Wijsheid in gesprekstherapie, edited by Mia Leyssen, and Nele Stinckens, 313-332. Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven.

Martin, Rod A., Patricia Puhlik-Doris, Gwen Larsen, Jeanette Gray, and Kelly Weir. 2003. “Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the Humor Styles Questionnaire”. Journal of Research in Personality 37 (1): 48-75. doi: 10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00534-2.

Mayer, Roger C., James H. Davis, and F. David Schoorman. 1995. “An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust”. The Academy of Management Review 20 (3): 709-73. doi: 10.2307/258792.

Meyer, John C. 2000. “Humor as a double-edged sword: Four functions of humor in communication”. Communication Theory 10 (3): 310-331. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2885.2000.tb00194.x.

Ngo-Metzger, Quyen, Kristin J. August, Malathi Srinivasan, Solomon Liao, and Frank L. Meyskens jr. 2008. “End-of-Life Care: Guidelines for Patient-Centered Communication”. American Family Physician 77 (2): 167-174. http://escholarship.org/content/qt4492s26x/qt4492s26x.pdf [22/10/2017]

Paulus, Stephanie C. 2008. “Palliative Care: An Ethical Obligation”. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/bioethics/resources/palliative-care-an-ethical-obligation/ [22/10/2017]

Pearson, Steven D., and Lisa H. Raeke. 2000. “Patients' trust in physicians: many theories, few measures, and little data”. Journal of General Internal Medicine 15 (7): 509-13. doi: 10.1046/j.1525-1497.2000.11002.x.

Plonk, William M., and Robert M. Arnold. 2005. “Terminal Care: the last weeks of life”. Journal of Palliative Medicine 5 (8): 1042-1054. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2005.8.1042.

Schulz von Thun, Friedemann (1981). Miteinander reden: Störungen und Klärungen. Psychologie der zwischenmenschlichen Kommunikation. Reinbek: Rowohlt.

Tarrant, Carolyn, Mary Dixon-Woods, Andrew M. Colman, and Tim Stokes. 2010. “Continuity and trust in primary care: A qualitative study informed by game theory”. The Annals of Family Medicine 8 (5): 440-446. doi: 10.1370/afm.1160.

Thom, David H., Richard L. Kravitz, Robert A. Bell, Edward Krupat, and Rahman Azari. 2002. “Patient trust in the physician: Relationship to patient request”. Family Practice 19 (5): 476-483. doi: 10.1093/fampra/19.5.476.