I’m a doctor with quadriplegia—thanks to tech, I’m back at work

Enlarge / Dinesh Palipana, thinking about how much he loathes paper medical records. (credit: Dinesh Palipana)

Dinesh Palipana, OAM, LLB, MD, is a senior resident in the Emergency Department at the Gold Coast University Hospital and lecturer at the Griffith University. He is a disability advocate and researcher in spinal cord injury. He was the recipient of an Order of Australia Medal for service to medicine in 2018.

I once bought a great pen. It had a light woodgrain body with my name engraved across it. With its smooth rollerball, the pen was perfect because I didn't have to apply much pressure to write-a boon, given the limited finger function that I have as a result of a spinal-cord injury.

So when I started my shift in the emergency department a few weeks ago and noticed that the pen wasn't with me, I was momentarily annoyed. But then I realized that I rarely use a pen these days. Satisfaction washed over me; the very thing that I spent weeks learning to write with had now become largely redundant, thanks to electronic medical records.

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