Dinesh Palipana was a 22-year-old lawyer and medical student when a critical car accident changed his life forever.
When it first happened, I prayed, I hoped, I begged. Wished with all my heart that I could have my old life back. I wanted to not have the accident. I wanted to not be paralysed. I wanted to not have the spinal cord injury and I wished and wished and wished and wished. But today I wouldn't change my life for the world.Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM
In this episode of Seen, Yumi Stynes speaks with doctor, lawyer and disability advocate Dinesh Palipana about this life-changing moment, his healing process, and the ways Dinesh is breaking barriers in the medical world.
Hosted by Yumi Stynes, Seen is a podcast series about cultural creatives rising to excellence despite arriving in a role-model vacuum. Hear from trailblazers like writer Michael Mohammed Ahmad, journalist Narelda Jacobs, activist Hannah Diviney and more, about the transformative moments they felt seen.
Host: Yumi Stynes
Created by: Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn
Executive Producer: Kate Montague
Producers: Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn and Cassandra Steeth
Junior Producer: Alison Zhuang
Sound design and mix: Ravi Gupta
Theme music: Yeo
Art: Evi-O Studios
SBS team: Caroline Gates, Max Gosford, Joel Supple
Special thanks to Nicolas Huntington
Transcript
(Theme music building)
Yumi Stynes: As a warning, this episode contains descriptions of trauma, some swear words and references to sexual assault.
Dinesh Palipana: My mum loves this philosophy that by helping one person, you might not change the world, but you will change the world for them.
(Theme music building)
Stynes: Today on Seen, we discover what happens when you commit to living your life in service of others - and what happens when your ability to deliver on that commitment - is severely tested.
Palipana: I often think about this idea of destiny or fate or sliding doors or whatever it might be. Especially when I think back to that moment. Because that weekend I wasn’t going to go home.
Stynes: Our subject is Dinesh Palipana, who’s dialling in from his Gold Coast home on the land of the Kombu Merri families of the Yugambeh region.
(Theme music fade out, sound design: interior of a car driving)
Palipana: I didn't take the normal road that I take. And I took a different road. I saw something on the road, and it was either a water puddle or a patch of oil. And as soon as I hit it, my car lost control.
(Sound design: car breaking, car crash, crickets chirping)
Dinesh Palipana: And then I tried to get out of the car. And then I rested my hand down on my leg. And I realised I couldn't feel my legs. And I couldn't feel anything below my chest. And then I knew that my life changed forever.
(Theme music)
Stynes: I’m Yumi Stynes and this is Seen, a podcast about the kind of trailblazers who you never get to see in the mainstream, but who, in the complete absence of role models, have risen to excellence anyway.
I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we record, the Cammeraygal and Gadigal peoples, and their Elders past and present whose culture includes a rich tradition of healing, medicine and storytelling.
(Theme music fade out)
Stynes: One of the things that really strikes me with Dinesh’s story is how much he lives up to the idea of the model minority that we talk so much about in this podcast.
He is succeeding despite the immense pressure to be exceptional in the face of so much resistance, institutional racism and discrimination.
And truth be told, I’d wish he’d kind of settle down to give us all the permission to fuck up a little bit.
Palipana: I'm sorry! I'm sorry! (Chuckles)
Stynes: But as you’ll hear in this episode, Dinesh is a massive overachiever.
He was born in Sri Lanka during a civil war, Dinesh grew up exposed to political instability, corruption and a chronic lack of opportunity.
In 1997 his family made the decision to migrate to Australia.
(Sound design: plane landing)
Palipana: We landed here on my 10th birthday, it was the first time I was ever on an aeroplane, the first time I was ever out of Sri Lanka.
(Music)
Stynes: When Dinesh’s family arrived in Australia, they moved to Byron Bay. And unlike a lot of other migrant stories, they settled in pretty easily. The troubled times from Sri Lanka were behind them.
Palipana: When I was a kid I used to love the Ninja Turtles, they were always eating pizza. So I couldn't wait to eat pizza all the time cause in Sri Lanka there was no pizza. It was super exciting and I dove into it.
(Music fade out)
Stynes: A common story for many migrant kids is that from a young age they’re indoctrinated to believe that getting a law degree maximises the likelihood you’ll be a success story and make your parents proud - even if you haven’t the faintest interest in the law!
Palipana: I just had this picture in my head where, oh, yes, I'll be a lawyer and I'll get to wear a suit, I'll get to work in this tall building and I'll be important, I can buy a BMW one day and that will be a good life. I realised as I was going through law school. I just didn't enjoy studying at the time. And I didn't enjoy the subject material and eventually I just got depressed and in retrospect, I think it's just because I was living this fake life.
Stynes: Lacking authenticity and purpose, Dinesh struggled to get out of bed… And it’s difficult to overstate how long, how awful and how deep that depressive hole was.
Palipana: When there's a disconnect between our soul and what we're doing. I think that is a path to depression and I think depression is then a sort of orange light or flags for us to think about what we want to do or who we are even.
I started to see a doctor and the doctor was awesome. He was really kind, he was really understanding. And he helped me come out of the depression. I remember the exact day where I came to the realisation that holy hell, I might be out of this.
(Music)
Palipana: I remember driving out of the garage one day and suddenly I could just see the beautiful rich green colour of the trees and I could feel the sun on my skin. And it felt warm and nice and I was playing Tupac and it sounded good. You know, you connect with the music and you feel alive and I felt amazing.
Stynes: Years later, Dinesh can still look in the rear-view mirror and see the huge difference that one doctor made in his life.
Palipana: My mum loves this philosophy that's by helping one person, you might not change the world, but you will change the world for them. And that is how I decided to become a doctor, because I thought, man this guy. This person changed my world. And what if I could do that for someone. And it doesn't have to be hundreds of people. It doesn't have to be thousands of people. I just wanted to do that for one person. And if I could do that for one person, just like he did for me, I think my entire life would be worthwhile.
Stynes: Taking action to connect his heart with what he was actually doing with his life, Dinesh got into med-school in Queensland. From the pictures taken around that time, he looks radiant, immersed in the culture and lifestyle of a typical young med student.
(Music fade out)
Palipana: I think I was your 24 year old guy who's loving life and on top of the world. One of my best friends was interviewed a little while ago. And someone asked about me, he's like, “he was very flirtatious.” And I was like, Dude, why do you do me like that? That's… (laughing)
Stynes: I've seen the photos Dinesh. You look like you'd be a right, proper flirt.
Palipana: Oh, man, that's terrible! We used to party a bit in med school. When the time allowed, we used to blow off a bit of steam on the weekends. I found my way in medical school and I think I found my why and purpose in life. But there was probably still enough that might have sent me off the path again.
You do get a sense of confidence and perhaps overconfidence sometimes, and I think hubris and arrogance, which I hope that I wouldn't have got. But I often talk to people like, ‘who knows how it would have turned out, I might have become a dick. I don't know.’ (Laughing) I hope not. But-
Stynes: I think if you look at any photos of anyone in their twenties, there's potential for that branch of the tree to go into dick territory.
Palipana: Yeah. Yeah. It could have gone into dick territory.
Stynes: In the world of Dinesh Palipana, cataclysmic disaster is about to strike.
Through the screens connecting us, I watch as he goes back in time to when he was a med student, handsome, full of promise, at the steering wheel of his young life…right back to a flash of destiny, or fate, where everything is about to change.
A young Dinesh is driving home from a weekend at his parent’s house…
(Sound design: car interior sound)
Palipana: I was doing the speed limit. And I was actually just driving perfectly normally. I remember coming up to this bit where I saw something on the road, and it was either a water puddle or a patch of oil. I can't be sure, but it was something shiny and slick. And as soon as I hit it, my car lost control. It started spinning.
(Sound design: car breaks, slow motion crash, drone)
Palipana: It just felt like the road was coated with butter. And I was just sliding all around. Then the car went off the road. There was an embankment on the side of the road. It went up the embankment, came back down, and the front of the car slammed into the road and started flipping through the air.
So now it’s flying through the air. It felt like the accident was going on forever and ever and ever. But I had this moment to think when it was flipping and I thought, You know what? There's nothing more that I can do about this situation. And if I die, I’m gonna die. If I survive, you survive. So I just decided to think about it differently, because that's the only thing I can control. So I just decided to have fun. Have fun with the thought of it.
Stynes: Have fun having your car crash?
Palipana: Yeah. What else could I do, right? I couldn't do anything else about that situation, apart from think about it differently. So for the last little while in the accident, I was just having fun. (Laughing) I pretended I was in a rollercoaster, and I was laughing. I was yelling. I was having a great time actually. Then the car landed.
I was wearing a white t-shirt and there's a lot of red on it. Then I tried to get out of the car and I couldn't move anymore. And I couldn't use my fingers. I tried to open the door, but my fingers couldn't grab the handle. And that was it. And then I rested my hand down on my leg. And I realised I couldn't feel my legs. And I couldn't feel anything below my chest. And I knew that my life had changed forever, within those seconds and that things will never be the same again.
(Music)
Stynes: Dinesh had sustained a spinal cord injury at the base of his neck. He spent eight months in hospital recovering, and grappling with his new reality of paralysis from his chest down.
Palipana: I think I felt very visible for a few weeks. Because there were a lot of people coming to the hospital. There were a lot of people visiting. And news of that accident spread. Pretty quick. But then in the subsequent couple of years, I felt so invisible. Because people stopped picking up my phone calls, and I just faded away.
Stynes: Dinesh and his mother moved back to Sri Lanka to get a change of scene. They ended up staying for 4 years.
Palipana: I was hidden away in another country. Hidden away from the world. And part of it, I hid myself. As well, and I think I wanted to be invisible for a while.
Stynes: Well, particularly if your purpose was to help others and you felt like you were in this situation where all you needed was help, the help of others.
Palipana: Yeah. And I didn't have that for long except for my mum. I felt so invisible for a period of time. And then it was a slow, slow return. There was so much uncertainty. It was just hard. I distracted myself as much as I could, like reading books and watching movies because it was such a desolate feeling.
(Music fade out)
Palipana: I think the best thing I could do is have hope. Mum and a couple of my friends were the people that kept that hope alive and when it was grim as well. Hope is the thing that we're quickest to take away from people. But I think hope is, hope is everything. You have to hope to keep getting through the dark times.
I often think about what I would have been like if this never happened and if I continued as my old self. I think, by and large. There are aspects to me that haven't changed but then there are some bits of me that are different. I am more grateful. I am more hungry for life. Knowing how fleeting it is.
I laid in the hospital bed for a long time, and then I also laid in my bed at home for a long time, recovering. And I promised myself that I would be a better person. Like, I made a promise. That if I come out of this, I'll be a better person. I'll do everything I can to be better. So I think I've held and defined a set of values, which I've held a lot closer to my heart since then.
Stynes: What must it be like - to have been treated by a doctor so inspiring that he lights a fire in you to become a doctor yourself, And then you find yourself in the position of needing care almost constantly.
Palipana: I hated being a patient. Hated it so much. It was so disempowering. It was so scary. It was dehumanising. I'm going to talk about something that's pretty confronting and I guess there's probably a listener warning as well.
When I was in the hospital at one stage I was in a particular ward with a few young male patients who also had disabilities. There was a nurse on that ward who everyone knew about and I was warned about it as well. That nurse used to just drag us off into our rooms and insist on cleaning our privates. Didn't matter if we needed it or not, doesn’t matter, if we declined it, and if you were already bed, you had no way to get out. And this nurse would come and do it.
I remember talking to someone about and they’re like, “that was that was sexual abuse.” Like and then you think back, ‘like, wait a second, man. I didn't- like didn't consent. I didn't need that.’ Yet this person was doing it to all the- all the guys all the time. So, like, it was so dehumanising. So I hated it and even now, I hate going to the hospital as a patient, which is very ironic. But when the patients are there, I think about how disempowering, how scary, how dehumanising it is. I try to do whatever I can to make that better for them. For us, it might be the fifteenth patient that we see that day. But for that patient, they might be having a heart attack or the biggest event of their life. So I just try to think about that and hopefully I can make that a better experience for people.
Stynes: What was it like learning how the world interacts with disabled people?
Palipana: I was really naive. We're in 2010 when I had the accident. And I just didn't think it was going to be an issue. But over a period of time I realised, oh gosh, there, there are issues.
I had those difficult conversations coming back to medical school. And I had those difficult conversations about my career. And then I had challenges with health. And I realised, geez someone with a disability to access healthcare and hospitals and primary care and life threatening medical issues, this is why there's a life expectancy gap. This is why there's a health gap.
There's so much physical stuff. We talked about the paralysis, like the motor function. But then, I can't feel my body either. So I can't maintain my body temperature anymore. And because the skin doesn't work, it's prone to wounds. For example, I was carrying a pizza on my lap a little while ago. I got to the place and my leg was burnt from the pizza and I couldn't feel it. Every single body system is affected.
There's a lot more cognitive load, and a lot more think about and a lot more to manage. But again, it's given me a reason for this happening because I thought I'm in a position now where I am a doctor and I'm a lawyer and I can hopefully leave this world a better place for people with a disability and that gives the accident a lot of meaning.
Stynes: And that would help you, I guess, to process the accident.
Palipana: Yeah and you know what Yumi, I think when it first happened, I prayed. I hoped. I begged. I wished with all my heart that I could have my old life back. I wanted to not have the accident. I wanted to not be paralysed. I wanted to not have the spinal cord injury and I wished and wished and wished and wished. But today I wouldn't change my life for the world. And as hard as it was, if I had to go through it all over again. Well I would, because it's made me who I am today.
Stynes: Even in the worst experience of his life, trapped in his car realising he couldn’t move his hands or feel his legs, Dinesh still saw himself as a med student.
The paramedic who was helping him, literally gave a lecture at his university not that much earlier.
Palipana: From the moment I had the car accident. Like, I'm in the ambulance and I'm talking to that doctor and I said, “I need to get back to medical school. How am I going to do that?” (Laughing) And we actually had a brief conversation about it there and then.
Stynes: In his soul, Dinesh was a healer. He was a person who helped others.
Palipana: It's about people right. Medicine about, fundamentally about people. And it's about human connections and it's about the love of people. I can't remember who it was. It was Hippocrates or someone of that ilk, said that “wherever there's a love for medicine, there has to be a love for humanity.” Everything about that is something that resonates with me. So I think it's-it will always be a part of my identity.
Stynes: Except Dinesh when it wasn't part of your identity. So after the accident, it took a while, but you had to sort of settle in with this new version of yourself that couldn't possibly be a doctor.
Palipana: Yes, yeah, exactly. And that was so hard to fathom. I had a lot of conversations from the moment I had the accident all the way to well actually even sometimes now. A lot of people said “you cannot be a doctor now. You can't examine the patient. You can't do your exams. You can't get around a hospital. How are you going to do it from a wheelchair?”
(Music)
Palipana: And even in my own head, I thought “how am I going to do it?” And that was so painful and scary. But the thing is like I knew that if I let that go, I would regret it forever and I would think about it for the rest of my life. And I didn't want that.
Stynes: It took four years and the unwavering support of his mother to get back to medical school. His mother, by the way, is well-written into his story, and perhaps on another episode, Sanath Palipana should be the star and central character.
Another crucial support was one of Dinesh’s best friends, who had some advice…
Palipana: He said to me. “It's a road that's not been travelled, definitely not in Queensland and what you're going to have to do is treat it like you're an elite athlete. And you're going to have to put all your heart and soul into it and you're going have to focus and you're going to have to forgo everything.” So, when I came back to medical school everything was for medical school. I used to wake up at 3 a.m. and get home at about 11-11:30. Sleep for four hours, something like that for six days a week. I didn't go out to dinner. I didn't go out with friends. I didn't go to parties. I didn’t do anything. Those two years were just spent 100% immersed in this, trying to smash it, trying to graduate.
(Music fade out)
Palipana: When I was back in medical school I was visible and I was potentially even a bit of a novelty for a period of time. But the thing that was challenging most about that is when I was back in medical school, a lot of the friends that I started with were now, progressed in their career and they're far more senior to me. But they took that seniority pretty seriously, some of them. And I felt very invisible to them because it was things like they wouldn't sit with me anymore because they said “we didn't sit with medical students.” Some of them just wouldn't talk to me like they did, so I felt invisible then as well for that reason. Over time though that invisibility again changed and I became who I am.
Stynes: Were doors closed to you?
Palipana: I don’t know if doors were closed to me. There were doors that were attempted to be closed, like when I graduated. It was very hard to get a job. Initially. So that that door was, I had to pry open. Interestingly I thought some doors would have been shut, like working in the emergency department. I thought, okay, this is not going to be possible anymore. But it's funny you know like some of the, some of the specialities that were the least physical, the least physical in medicine. Were like, “there's no way you can work in a department of spinal cord injury, you have this, you have that. We can't have you.” But then the people in my emergency department were like, “hell yeah! We'll make it work, we'll make it happen.”
Stynes: It's fascinating to imagine you in the emergency department, Dinesh, because I haven't been in that many emergency departments, fortunately for me. But I've never seen a doctor in a wheelchair.
Palipana: Yeah, I hope I don't have to see you at work, Yumi, ever. I mean, I love seeing you professionally.
Stynes: It's lovely. Yes. But had you ever seen a doctor in a wheelchair?
Palipana: No. I mean, when I came back to medical school, There was one who had gone through, he had Guillain-Barré syndrome. I got some tips from him and then we eventually met the GP down in Tasmania. She has osteogenesis imperfecta but yeah, there's no, certainly no one working in an E.D. in Australia, in a wheelchair.
Stynes: As far as Dinesh knows, there are two other medical doctors in wheelchairs working in Australia.
So if we’re talking about looking for role models that look like you - sometimes there just aren’t very many.
Palipana: I had to go around and meet all these supervisors from different specialities. And some of them were. Very deadpan and serious. Some of them are very warm and supportive. And then there was one who was like, you know, “I don't know if the patients would take you seriously and I don’t know about this.”
What is interesting is that I think we need to give the community a lot of credit. Because while the institutions and the establishment has been that way sometimes, the patients have never ever ever been like that. I've seen thousands of patients now. And I would have expected at least some to have said, “Hey, can you actually do your job?” But no one.
Stynes: Yeah, not one?
Palipana: Not one. I don't know if they think in their mind that if they're like, ‘Oh, what the hell is happening here?’ I don't know. I've had some colleagues like say, female colleagues from other from various ethnic backgrounds whose patients have actually said, “can I get a male doctor? Or you know, are you actually a doctor?” All that stuff. And no one's ever said that to me, which which I find actually fascinating. So I think I'm going to give the community credit. And I think we have to give the community credit because I think when we talk about discrimination, I think some of it is actually more institutionalised than it's-it is in the community.
Someone told me recently that they were at a meeting and this very senior doctor, and apparently she said, you know, I wonder if Dinesh's medical degree is actually credible because he graduated with a… So there are apparently comments like that. Very recently I had a confronting conversation or experience with a particular institution. One of the senior doctors in my department heard about it and he just stopped me in the corridor and you said, you know “a piece of paper will never change the way I see you as a doctor and a person. And I will always value you.”
Stynes: Do you feel like being, being this quite visible guy is opening doors for other people?
Palipana: That's exactly what I want. And one day I want to be irrelevant. I want a world where I'm not. Like, ‘ oh that's a doctor in a wheelchair! Eh it's just another doctor.’ I want to eventually become irrelevant. But hopefully this time and telling these stories will show the world. Where the world's like, oh, actually, there is that doctor in a wheelchair, so why can't this guy, I don't know, be whatever a stripper in a wheelchair or whatever someone wants to be.
Stynes: You could moonlight? I mean, there's no reason you don't need a side hustle.
Palipana: I know I have applied, but. But my CV hasn't… bad boys afloat hasn’t gotten back to me yet. (Laughing)
(Music)
Stynes: What do you think the value is of being seen or feeling like you belong?
Palipana: It's what we all want, isn't it? I think belonging is so important because as humans, the social creatures and we thrive in collectives. And we need to belong and we need to have those connections. And that's so important. And I think the moment we take that away from someone, it's such a deeply hurtful thing.
Stynes: What was it that made you feel visible again?
Palipana: It was the people it was the people who gave me love. Who cared about me. Who invested their time in me. Who who just made me feel worthwhile. Who made me feel like a human. But I think then a lot more came after I graduated from medical school and taking that step. I think that is the greatest achievement of my life getting through medical school. Being a doctor is something that will be a part of me forever. It is something that forms my identity in a way. It's not so much the job or the title, but what it entails.
Stynes: Besides the people who made Dinesh feel human after his accident, it sounds like graduating and fulfilling his life purpose of helping others is what makes him feel most seen.
Sometimes you hear stories like this and it gives you perspective. It doesn’t diminish the struggles you have but hearing Dinesh’s genuine gratefulness for life… it makes you wonder where the hell he gets the strength not only to pull through but to keep succeeding, keep doing great things that not only serves him but also our whole community.
Admittedly it's, you know, kind of slightly annoying…
(Music theme music)
Stynes: Do you ever think I should just dial it down a notch?
Palipana: I have a couple of perspectives on this, actually, because I come from Sri Lanka and I remember the kids that I went to school with, many of them had no shoes. Many of them lived in mud huts. Many of them never had running electricity. And they worked so hard to try and get out of that situation. They studied so hard and I just know for those kids like, and sadly, many of them will never have the opportunities that I do. And that's the reality for billions of people on this planet. So I've been given this amazing gift. How can I not make the most of that? That's one thing that keeps me hungry, I suppose.
And the other thing is, life is - so fleeting Yumi, like when I'm at work every day, we hear an alarm go off and it means that someone is critically ill or in a trauma or whatever. And for that person, they may not survive or their life may change forever. Just like mine did in 2010. So life is so unpredictable and short and fleeting. So I just really want to make the most of every moment. So those two things often made me want to seize the day as much as I can. But you know, my mum said this to me I'm like, I was saying to mum “man, I feel like I've plateaued.” (Laughing) “And she's like, Oh, my God, just- you just need to chill. Just chill and just chill.”
(Theme music)
Stynes: This has been Seen. Hosted by me, Yumi Stynes, created by Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn with Audiocraft, in collaboration with SBS.
From Audiocraft this show was produced by Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn and Cassandra Steeth, our Junior Producer is Alison Zhuang. Sound design and mix is done by Ravi Gupta, and executive producer Kate Montague.
The SBS team are Caroline Gates, Joel Supple, and Max Gosford.
Our podcast artwork is created by Evi O Studios. Music is by Yeo. Special thanks to Jasmine Mee Lee.
(Theme music fade out, music sting)
Palipana: I read the book, The Count of Monte Cristo. And it really resonated with me, I felt like him. I felt like everything was ripped away from me. And I felt like something terrible happened.I just thought, just like him, I am going to come back stronger than ever.
Stynes: (Laughing) And escape from the prison. Does he escape?
Palipana: Yeah he escaped and he found a treasure and reinvented himself. I mean, the only thing he did was he took revenge on everyone, which I won't do.
Stynes: Well you're still young, Dinesh (laugh).
(Music sting)
