Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM

Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM was the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland and the second person to graduate medical school with quadriplegia in Australia. Dinesh is a doctor, lawyer, disability advocate, and researcher.

Halfway through medical school, he was involved in a motor vehicle accident that caused a cervical spinal cord injury.

As a result of his injury and experiences, Dinesh has been an advocate for inclusion. He is a founding member of Doctors with Disabilities Australia.

Dinesh works in the emergency department at the Gold Coast University Hospital. He has completed an Advanced Clerkship in Radiology at the Harvard University and is a senior lecturer at the Griffith University and adjunct research fellow at the Menzies Health Institute of Queensland. He is a research fellow at the Jamieson Trauma Institute. Dinesh is a researcher in spinal cord injury. He is a doctor for the Gold Coast Titans physical disability rugby team. Dinesh is a senior advisor to the Disability Royal Commission. He is an ambassador to the Human Rights Commission’s Includeability program. He was a 2021 International Day of People with Disability ambassador.

Dinesh was the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service’s Junior Doctor of the Year in 2018. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2019. He was the third Australian to be awarded a Henry Viscardi Achievement Award. He was the 2021 Griffith University Young Alumnus of the Year.

He is the author of Stronger, how losing everything set me free, published in 2022.

Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM is the 2021 Queensland Australian of the Year.

In 2023, Dinesh joined the advisory board of healthylife where he uses his experience and skills to provide expert health information and advocate for the health of Australians, and became a John Monash Scholar.