Dr. Joke Lemiengre

Lecturer and Researcher in Care and Ethics

Leuven University College, Limburg, Belgium

Joke Lemiengre has a great passion for care.  She is a Nurse (KATHO/VIVES, 2001), Master in Nursing Sciences (KUL, 2004), Aggregate for Secondary Education (2005) and Master in Apllied Ethics (KUL, 2006).  In 2010 she obtained the degree ‘Doctor in Biomedical Sciences’ (Center for Biomedical Ethics and Law, KUL).  Her Doctoral research examined the euthanasia policy in Flemish hospitals and residential care centers.  After the fascinating period of academic work she made the choice to be closer to the practice.  Since October 2009 she has been working at the Katholieke Hogeschool Limburg (now UC Leuven-Limburg University of Applied Sciences) and is fully committed to the field of “care and ethics”, both from nursing education, research and services.  As an ethicist she supports committees on ethics in hospitals and in home care.  She has built up expertise in the theme of end-of-life care.

Currently she is mainly active with innovative teaching methods for stimulating ethical care culture in organizations where an experiential approach is the main theme.  This is done in collaboration with sTimul: care-ethical lab in Lubbeek, from which she is seconded from Leuven University College as project coordinator.  She lectures on these topics, supervises (research) projects and advises and supervises healthcare organizations.  She is also coordinator of the Postgraduate Ethics Reference Officer at UC Leuven-Limburg University of Applied Sciences.  She is a member of the editorial board of the Tijdschrift voor Gezondheidszorg en Ethiek, and as an expert ethic associated with the NVKVV (Pluralistic organization for nurses).  In her spare time she is chairman of the parents’ council of the primary school De Zonnebloem in Kessel-Lo.