Job Title: Associate Professor, The University of Melbourne
Bio: Marie Bismark, a 2004-05 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, is a doctor and lawyer from New Zealand who works at the interface between law, medicine and healthcare policy. During her fellowship, her landmark research explored alternatives to medical malpractice litigation, with a particular focus on healthcare mediation and no-fault compensation. Bismark is currently director of New Zealand's No-Fault Accident Compensation Scheme and is also a senior solicitor with Buddle Findlay, a leading New Zealand law firm. She has previously practiced as a medical doctor in several New Zealand hospitals, served as a legal advisor to the New Zealand Health and Disability Commissioner, and taught at Otago Medical School and Victoria University Faculty of Law. Bismark serves on the Wellington Law Society's Ethics Committee and the New Zealand Law Society's Health Law Committee.
Placement: Harvard University
Mentors: David Studdert, LL.B, ScD, MPH, Harvard School of Public Health; Troyen Brennan, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School
Project: Relations Between Adverse Events, Complaints and No-Fault Compensation Claims in New Zealand
Description: Bismarck's project examined "no-fault" systems for compensating patients injured due to an adverse medical event, such as exists in New Zealand. Specifically, she determined the proportion of eligible New Zealand patients who claim compensation, and the socioeconomic characteristics of those who do not claim compensation. A national dataset of compensation claims was linked with adverse event data from the New Zealand Quality of Healthcare Study. Probabilistic matching of these two datasets permitted estimation of how frequently adverse events, as determined by a team of physician reviewers, led to compensation claims.