‘Inspiring’ doctor named Qld’s Australian of the Year
Dr Dinesh Palipana, who is quadriplegic, beat the odds to become a doctor and is now a leading advocate for doctors with disabilities
Dr Dinesh Palipana has been named Queensland’s representative in the 2021 Australian of the Year Award.
The award comes almost 10 years after a horrific car crash fractured his cervical spine at C6/C7 level when he was in his third year of medical school.
The accident left him with only minimal use of his upper limbs and sensation of the medical aspect of his hands but he was determined to continue his studies.
Since then Dr Palipana has worked with clinical care experts to come up with creative solutions to the challenges of clinical practice, such as using the side of his hand with sensation to feel a patient’s abdomen and using speech-to-text on an iPad to take progress notes.
