Defying Expectations … with Dr Dinesh Palipana

Emma 00:00

Access Granted is a production for powered media. Welcome to access granted, a podcast for anyone seeking inclusion when it comes to living with disability. I

Dinesh 00:35

didn't want to die scared. I didn't want to die anxious. I didn't want to die fearful. So while the accident was happening, I made a conscious decision to not be scared and to think of it differently. So I pretended that I was in a roller coaster. You

Emma 01:13

access granted is where the personal and the political collide. It's curious conversations between people living with disability, hearing about advocacy, the push for change, and discussing ideas for a more accessible world. You're listening to access granted with Emma Myers, you

Dinesh 01:49

I grew up in Sri Lanka, and my mom caught me once smoking a cigarette butt in the backyard when I was like, five years old.

Emma 01:58

What'd you do?

Dinesh 02:00

I did a bunch of naughty stuff when I was a kid, and my mom tried to discipline me, but I remember once I kept running around the house so she couldn't catch me. I gave her a hard time.

Emma 02:12

And what were you like growing up? I feel like

Dinesh 02:16

I had so many different childhoods, because first 10 years of it was in Sri Lanka, and then Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was beautiful place to it's a beautiful place to visit. I mean, it's naturally beautiful. It's got so much history, but we lived through a war when I was a kid. So it was a it was a difficult time for a lot of people to live through in Sri Lanka. And then, after our time there, we moved to Australia. Lived in Sydney for a little bit, and then the rest of my childhood, really and teenage years, was in Byron Bay. So Byron Bay was a beautiful place to grow up. I spent the rest of primary school and high school there, and I loved it. You know, it was picturesque Byron bear was so quiet and beautiful back then, and I couldn't have asked for a better place to be a kid.

Emma 03:16

Were you always interested in becoming a doctor? No,

Dinesh 03:21

I wasn't one of the kids that grew up wanting to be a doctor, so I didn't really know what I want to do when I finished high school, and I spent a lot of time trying to think about what to do with my life. So I threw around a few different ideas, like I thought about being a pilot for a while. I thought about doing it for a while, and I had a few different ideas of things that I was interested in, but I was never passionate about anything. And eventually I decided to study law when I finished school. So I finished high school, got into law school and started studying that. 

But when I was in law school, I had depression, and it was after having that that I decided to do medicine, because I started see a doctor when I was when I had depression, and the doctor was incredible. The doctor was, you know, it changed my life. Depression is one of the hardest things that I've ever gone through, and the doctor helped me recover, and it changed my whole world, and I wanted to do that for other people. So that's what inspired me to do medicine myself. And I started medical school when I was, I think, 23 years old, so it's a bit later.

Emma 04:46

And if you don't mind me asking, what caused the depression? Do you think?

Dinesh 04:52

Yeah, that's a great question, Emma, I know. I think it was a combination of many things, like, I. Um, I was diagnosed with celiac disease at the time, so there was probably a bit of that contributing to the anxiety and depression, which was probably a result of the celiac disease going unchecked for so long. But also, I think a big part of it was me not knowing where I belong in this world, and what my purpose was. I was a very superficial person. When I was in law school, I was so I don't know how to put it up. I was just a very materialistic person. And I think I just got distracted by so many things that are not important in life. 

And it was, it was probably a combination of all those things that led to depression. I've come to realize that happiness, ironically, doesn't come from looking at what you can take from this world of realised that happiness comes from what we can give to this world. And those days, I think I was looking at what I can take and how I can feel my calm, and I think that's what ended up leading to this dark place. 

Emma 06:20

And so take us back to the accident. You know, what were you feeling at the time? What thoughts was running through your head as this always taking place? 

Dinesh 06:35

Oh, the, so the accident happened on the 31st of January, 2010 I was working this weekend overnight that the weekend is gone. So I was working night shifts, and there was someone who came in with a spinal cord injury, and it brought back a lot of memories about how it felt to be in the hospital that night. And I really felt for this person, you know, because their spinal cord injury was was worse than mine, and I remembered what it felt like in those moments where I realized that I was paralysed, but for my accident, I was driving along a highway on a day that it had rained and my car aquaplane it hit a puddle of water, or it might have been puddle of oil. 

We've never been 100% sure, but my car lost control after hitting that and it spun and went off the road, and then it came back down from a little hill on the side of the road, and then the front of the car smashed onto the highway, and my car started flipping through the air front to back. When I was in in the wreck, as it was happening, I realized that there wasn't anything I could do about it. You know, I was in the car, the car was flipping, and I thought I was going to die, and I just knew there was nothing I could do. But I also knew that this might be my last few minutes on this planet, or few seconds, and I didn't want to I didn't want to die scared. I didn't want to die anxious. I didn't want to die fearful. 

So while the accident was happening, I made a conscious decision to not be scared and to think of it differently. So I pretended that I was in a roller coaster and and I actually had a good time while the accident was happening, but when the car finally landed, when it stopped rolling, I tried to get out of the car, and that's when I realized that I was paralyzed. And then it was a different thing, you know, because I was still alive, and I was grateful for that, but I knew I had a spinal cord injury, and that was horrifying, that was sickening, that was scary, that was just so bad I can't begin to explain what that moment felt like, and I've never been able to but it was, it was the worst realization of my life.

Emma 09:25

Were you studying Mendelssohn at the time?

Dinesh 09:27

So I was in medical school at the time. I was, I was just halfway through, just over halfway through. I remember we had a, we had a halfway dinner for medical school, and that was it. It was we had the halfway dinner just a few months before that, or couple of months before that. So that was it.

Emma 09:50

And what was the aftermath like the recovery? You know, while you were in hospital, did you notice a... change in the attitudes of your colleagues?

Dinesh 10:06

I mean, the aftermath began straight away, right? So emergency services came and started this journey as a patient. From that moment on, I actually had a senior colleague who taught me medical school in the ambulance, and he was he was amazing, he was kind, He was caring, He was compassionate, he was empathetic, and he made me feel so looked after, and he really set the tone for who I wanted to be as a doctor in the future, but I spent seven or eight months in the hospital after that, and over the next couple of years, I spent probably another three or four months in hospitals with complications of the spinal cord injury, and I did not enjoy any of those moments really like it was very few and far between when I had any positive interactions, and most of it was really confronting. 

A lot of it was disempowering. I felt that it was really paternalistic. I had some really uncomfortable interactions with doctors. I had some who said I'll never be a doctor again. I had some who didn't really respect my decisions for various things. So it, you know, I love, I'm going to work today after I finish this chat with you, and I'm really looking forward to it. I love, I love going to work. It doesn't feel like work. I have a great time. But I'm really scared to go to a hospital as a patient. It brings back memories, and that's ironic, right? Because I love working in a hospital, but I don't want to be in a patient in a hospital, it's kind of like if you want to be a pilot and you like flying the plane, but are too scared to be a passenger, same thing. So, yeah, I think being a patient is tough, especially when you have a disability.

Emma 12:07

Can you elaborate on being a patient with a disability? You mentioned in the months following the accident that you had to go back into hospital a couple of times. Did the staff underestimate your understanding or anything?

Dinesh 12:30

Yeah, always. And it's a funny thing, because, I mean, I was, I was still on here, medical student then, but even these days, there are rare occasions when I might be somewhere with friends or family, and there'll be times when someone chooses not to talk to you about something to do with you, which I assume is maybe by virtue of being in a wheelchair, some rare members of our society might think, okay, I don't think I can communicate with this person. So healthcare is no different, and we've had we've had the disability Royal Commission, we've had a lot of investigations done into disability and health, and we've seen that people with disability experience violence, neglect, abuse in institutional settings, including hospitals. They don't get listened to, they get neglected, and we've had deaths in care, which is horrifying. 

So I think I experienced all these things myself. I think there's a lot of work to be done in how we treat people with disability in healthcare settings, and from my personal experiences, yeah, I think one of the most frustrating things was not being listened to.

Emma 13:58

And when did you meet someone with the same condition for the first time?

Dinesh 14:03

I was... in amongst a lot of people in the hospital, because I was in a spinal unit for a period of time. So there were other people going through the same condition. It's really hard to am I going to say this is one of the best questions that I've ever been asked, because there's so many, there's so many layers to this. So even to face myself, it took a couple of years. So I didn't look in a mirror for a couple of years. I couldn't, I didn't want to look in a mirror, because to see myself was really hard. You know, I had a I had a picture of who I was, I had an idea of what I looked like, and then suddenly I was a guy who used a wheelchair, which was vastly different. 

So I.... it was hard to to see that, but then to see other people as well, like there were other people in the hospital, but I also find it really hard to face others who had the same condition, because, again, it was sometimes kind of like looking in a mirror, right? And so it was hard, it took a while for me to, sort of, you know, in inverted commas, normalise this and to start talking to people. But I have a friend who sadly went through a spinal cord injury himself, and I remember, even though we were friends, it took a long time for him to see me to him to want to interact. And I understand why it's because I get why it's hard. So I think it took a long time for me to start interacting with anyone, and it took a bit longer to start interacting with other people with spinal cord injury as well.

Emma 16:06

Can I just say that I had cerebral palsy, I was born with the condition, that I go through periods where I kind of analyse myself as who I know I am versus who society thinks I am. You know, this is our version of normal, and it's our life, and it's our it's what we make it.

Dinesh 16:41

Yep, so true. And I think for you and I like in our own minds, we just feel like normal human beings, right? I love that it's our normal.

Emma 16:52

You're listening to Access Granted with Emma Myers. Specific turning point in your recovery that made you want to advocate for others?

Dinesh 17:07

I think it was more, the more that I started to see, because I think I was really naive actually. I thought that I kind of lived in this world before then, with rose tinted glasses. And I always thought it's 20, we're in the 2010s, the 21st century. I live in Australia. I live in this world, and it must be a progressive world. People mustn't have challenges anymore, like people mustn't get discriminated anymore, you know? And so I thought, Okay, I think this will be a smooth journey, not physically, but I thought socially, it would be okay. But I was so wrong, you know? I was so wrong because there was still issues in the healthcare system. There was issues in community access, there was issues with attitudes. There was issues accessing education, there was issues accessing employment.

And all of these things are fundamental human rights that are so close to my heart, especially after coming from Sri Lanka, because I know that people have trouble accessing these things, and they're so important, and education, for one, is something I hold dear to my heart, because will you and I be having this conversation if I hadn't had the opportunity to be educated? Probably, probably not right? So I think everyone should have that opportunity to pursue happiness, to pursue a career of their choice, to pursue the education that they want. But we don't have these things, and I struggled to access those things. 

And I realised, damn, the world is it's not quite where we needed to be at it's not what quite where I thought it was. And I think I just have a responsibility to contribute to to moving those things forward for all of us.

Emma 19:09

And so you're a practicing physician now, have you ever had patients refusing to be treated by you?

Dinesh 19:19

Again, I love that question. You you, you definitely asked us ask the good questions, I reckon. And you know what I thought they would be, and maybe they will be one day, I don't know. So I'm now in the eighth year of working, the eighth year of practice. And I am shocked actually, that no one has and I've seen 1000s of patients now. So that tells me that I think society and I think. People are fundamentally good. I think people are fundamentally amazing. I think we're lucky to have the human beings that we do. I think where we have challenges are probably the institutions and the structures and those kind of things. But I think the general public are probably far further ahead than we think.

Emma 20:21

I do have one question. It may not get in, but now I wonder. It's really curious. Have you seen The Good Doctor, and what do you think of it?

Dinesh 20:33

I love that question. I actually haven't seen it, but there's a there's a group in Canada that's currently writing my story into a TV series. So we don't know if it'll come to life. There's still a few more steps left, but hey, maybe there'll be another Good Doctor out and about. 

Emma 20:53

Yeah, okay, that's going in. Do you think you would have had the same career and advocate the opportunities, if it weren't for you accident?

Dinesh 21:04

No, definitely not. I. I wonder this all the time, and I think that's another question I would love to be asked, which you just did. And I don't think so. I think I wonder what I would have been like. I wonder if I would have become arrogant. I wonder if I would have become, I don't know, you know, there's that saying, someone said that some people die at 25 but they don't get buried until 75 and I wonder if that would have been me, if... the accident didn't happen, I wonder if I would have just kept going with life, and it wouldn't have been. It may not have been a bad life, but I wonder if I would have thought about contributing, or I wonder would if I would have been as interested in these issues that you and I talk about, had this not happened, and it's the hardest thing that I've ever had to go through, not just me, but my mom and everyone around me. 

But I think they also say that there's nothing beautiful without struggle, and perhaps this struggle will have hopefully led to some beautiful things.

Emma 22:24

Which I guess leads me into what what's the hardest thing about acquiring your disability?

Dinesh 22:33

I read this poem once, which I love. It's a haiku, and it goes something like... My barn having burnt down, I can finally see the moon. We spend our life building these barns, right? We build, we build so many things. We that that's what we aim for, especially in a country like this, right? We aim for finishing high school and then having a career, and then having a mortgage and then having a house and then having a family and having a car and going on a holiday and all this stuff. And we build this, we equate it with success, and we have these ideas about what success looks like and what what we should do in life. And I think at that time, I felt like I was getting there. 

I didn't know if I felt like I was there, but I felt like I was getting there, and so I had these really rigid ideas of what that looked like. And I think I was really attached to my body and the way it was and things that I did and the normality of things. So to have that ripped away was very hard. It was hard to have it ripped away, and it was hard to think about the things that I've lost and not being able to do X, Y and Z and whatever else. So that was so hard. But apart from that loss, it was really hard to see the changes in attitudes that some of the people closest to me had, like, you know, my family split up, I lost friends and people want walked away. So those things were really hard emotionally. 

So I think those were the hardest sort of things. But over the years, I've come to celebrate the things that I have, not lament the things that I've lost, and my bond having burnt down, I can actually see the moon. I think shedding those things really set me free. And I can see see light in a different way.

Emma 24:38

You should do other poetry book if you have a way with words that I've never heard anyone describe, just that the have now, what are you most proud of? 

Dinesh 24:53

Graduating from medical school was one of the best moments of my life, because, you know, there was so much work and sacrifice. Feist that went into it, my mum, we came together and did that together. There was so much doubt and there was so much adversity along the way. So to come to the top of that mountain and celebrate that moment, I still remember everything about that. I remember the smells and the sights and the sounds, the temperature, the day that everything so I think graduating from medical school was the proudest moment of my life.

Emma 25:27

And what are you proud of that you never planned for when you said that?

Dinesh 25:34

You know pride is a dangerous thing. I think if you're too proud of things, sometimes we lose touch with reality and we lose touch with people. I choose to see myself as being grateful for things. So I'm grateful for the opportunities that I've had to try and make a small impact for the community of people with disability in this country and elsewhere, I'm grateful for the opportunity that I've been given to try and maybe turn things around for some of the kids that are going to follow you and me in the future. So I'm grateful for those things.

Emma 26:15

Have you ever had a patient story that stuck with you?

Dinesh 26:19

There's so many stories that have struck, stuck with me, and they always will in my heart. But I think the ones I mean, if I if I had to pick one among many, I've seen some human beings who have been horrifically abused in the community that have come into the ED afterwards, and we had the privilege of being a part of their journey to heal at the start, I am sometimes horrified at what human beings can do for each other, and I've been horrified at some of the wounds that people sustain, both physically and emotionally on the way. And I don't know what happened to that person that I'm thinking of right now, and I don't know what happened to many of these patients afterwards. 

But, yeah, I always think of them, you know, always, always think about the pain that they went through, experiencing the abuse that they did at the hands of another human being, and the vulnerability and the wounds. And that's not, not, not such a positive story, I guess. But you know, it's the reality of what we do exactly.

Emma 27:46

You're making an impact on on their lives for the better. And just finally, what would access granted look like for you? 

Dinesh 28:00

It'd be the day where you and I didn't need to have these conversations. It'll be the day where, as you said, this is just the normal for our world. Because actually, humanity is a spectrum. It's a spectrum of so many different things, and there is no normal in the traditional sense. I don't think diversity makes us beautiful. It's, I kind of think about a blue sky, right? You can look all through the blue sky and it's all the same. It's not still beautiful. But when you put a rainbow through it, it just sticks out, and the different colors are amazing, and we all look at it, and I think humanity is like a rainbow, so it will hopefully be the day where we don't need to have these conversations, and where everyone is seen for their strength, not their deficit, where everyone is given an opportunity to thrive, and where everyone can have an equitable chance.

Emma 29:10

And if you've enjoyed this edition of Access Granted, let us know on Facebook, at Powerd Media - that's powered with just one E... P, O, W, E, R, D media, and you can find the next edition when it comes out next week, wherever you download your podcasts.  (THEME)