[1][2] After completing a MA(Hons) at the University of Auckland, and a 1985 DPhil thesis on the social history of tuberculosis in Britain, at the University of Oxford, Bryder returned to Auckland, where she continued her research into the social history of medicine.

[1][2][3] Bryder's highest profile work has been in relation to the Cartwright Inquiry into the 'unfortunate experiment'.

Her 2009 book A History of the 'Unfortunate Experiment' at National Women's Hospital did not support one of the inquiry's central findings (that there had been a prospective study) and attracted a great deal of attention in academia[4][5][6][7][8][9] and in the popular press.

[10][11][12] [13][14][15] In 2010, Bryder wrote an editorial in the New Zealand Medical Journal, by invitation, responding to criticisms of her book.

[16] In 2018, she published a letter in the New Zealand Medical Journal drawing on new relevant international research.