Dinesh Palipana is Queensland’s first quadriplegic doctor – Report by Trevine Rodrigo (Melbourne)
Dinesh Palipana is a doctor working in one of the busiest emergency departments in the country.
But he isn’t your average doctor.
Eight years ago, his car aquaplaned and rolled multiple times, changing his life forever.
Dinesh Palipana is a doctor working in one of the busiest emergency departments in the country. But he isn’t your average doctor. Eight years ago, his car aquaplaned and rolled multiple times, changing his life forever.
“I was on top of the world, enjoying the outdoors, travelling, and in a matter of seconds I become paralysed,” he said.
“To not be able to use your fingers and legs and things like that was a bit of a shock and it took a long time to adjust and to come back to life.” After a seven-month stay in hospital and three years recovering, he returned to medical school to finish as the first quadriplegic doctor in Queensland and the second in Australia.
“Even when I was in the ambulance from the accident scene going to the hospital, I was talking to the doctor in the ambulance and I was talking about medical school and how I was going to get back into it,” he said. But not everyone was as optimistic as he was.
“There were moments when a lot of people had a chat to me and said think about doing something different with your life because it’s going to be really, really hard,” Dr Palipana said. “It came to a point where I thought, I’d regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t give this a shot and I just came back.” However, every day comes with a new set of challenges for Dr Palipana.
“I struggle to breathe all the time because my lungs don’t work properly,” he said. “I’ve only officially taken one sick day and I think well I’m paralysed, so it’d have to be something pretty damn bad to keep me from work. I just get on with it.” Gold Coast Health emergency medicine director Associate Professor David Green said Dr Palipana was dedicated despite his challenges. “In a big busy emergency department with lots of staff, his value is enormous, he works night duty on lates, on days the same as everyone else,” Prof Green said. “You don’t actually realise after a while, you forget about his disability, Dinesh is just the guy in the wheelchair doing all the work, and he does heaps of work.
“I think it’s important to embrace with disabilities who have to perform at a higher level than all the rest of us just to get through it. “It’s quite an inspiration to staff and it’s a valuable lesson to everyone that works with Dinesh how amazing he is.” Dr Palipana said his patients did not mind having a doctor with a disability. “I’ve never ever, not once, which even surprises me had a patient that reacted oddly to me being their doctor.” He is so determined to walk again that he is putting his brain and body to work on research aiming to repair the spinal cord.
“Some of the things we’re doing is using brain waves to move limbs and having people think about moving their legs and we bypass the spinal cord and make that happen,” he said. “Some of the early research shows that it helps rewire the spinal cord and helps people move voluntarily, really exciting cutting edge stuff.” On the top of all that, he is also starting a charity – Doctors with Disabilities Australia. – (Courtesy-Channel Nine)
