DrMary Dahm

I'm a Senior Lecturer in the Ethics Law and Professionalism stream in the Deakin MD program. While I teach across the ELP my focus is on quality and safety in healthcare and how this relates to professional practice. 

I'm also available to supervise Honours, Masters and PhD research student projects using qualitative and mixed-methods approaches focused on:

• Kidney specialists' decisions under uncertainty and their decision-making in deceased vs living donor kidney transplants
• Quality and safety in healthcare, including diagnostic safety initiatives
• Health services research including comparison of health policy and practice, patient experiences
• Health communication and professional interactions in clinical settings (e.g. surrounding consent, risk, end of life)
• Discourse analysis in healthcare contexts and professions
• Internationally trained medical and health professionals
• Consumer/ patient engagement in health services research

Please email me about these topics but also with further proposals :)

• Current student research projects

PhD Research projects
- Laura Chien (2023- )Australian National University, "Navigating diagnostic uncertainty: The patient and caregiver journey in the emergency department" Primary supervisor

Masters by Research projects

- Bailey Goodwin (2025), University of Melbourne, Master of Genetic Counselling: panel member

- Colin Ruane (2014), Macquarie University, Master of Research (Linguistics): co-supervisor

- Jasmin Rahman (2014), Macquarie University, Master of Research (Linguistics): co-supervisor

Selected Past Medical School Research Projects (ANU)

- Charney Wells (2024-2026): "Understanding the diagnostic process for sexual and gender minority populations in primary and emergency care settings: an integrative systematic review of patient, care partner, and provider perspectives" - Primary supervisor
- Sybilla Stonnill (2023-2024): "The power of language to influence the recommendations and lessons learned from Coroner’s reports for people whose deaths were complicated by misdiagnosis.” - Primary supervisor

- Rose Carey (2022-2023): "Diagnostic errors and diagnostic safety in emergency medicine in the United States and Australia. Insights from a qualitative study of interviews." - primary supervisor - Closely related work has been published Open Access in BMC Health Services Research 
- William Cattanach (2020-2021): "How do doctors communicate diagnostic uncertainty in primary care and how does it impact patient experience? An integrative review” - primary supervisor - This work has been published Open Access in the Journal of General Internal Medicine