Internationally respected doctor and disability advocate to take part in empathic healthcare event
Dr Dinesh Palipana
A highly respected Australian medical doctor, lawyer, researcher and disability advocate will travel to the UK next year to take part in a ground-breaking course on empathic healthcare for clinicians and educators.
Dr Dinesh Palipana was the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland and works in the emergency department at Gold Coast University Hospital as well as lecturing at Griffith University, where he co-leads the BioSpine spinal cord injury research team.
He has received numerous national honours and awards, including the Medal of the Order of Australia and Queensland Australian of the Year, and will travel to Leicester in April 2026 to speak at the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare’s Educating for Empathy in Healthcare course.
Dr Palipana will deliver a session for healthcare professionals and empathic healthcare educators and trainers called, ‘Unparalysed: How a spinal cord injury and depression shaped a doctor's thinking’.
He said: “Plato asserted that the greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul even though the two cannot be separated.
“We have veered towards physically objectifying the patient experience, leaving the soul behind.
“In an age where healthcare is in crisis, where artificial intelligence is deemed more empathetic than a human, rethinking the way we deliver healthcare is critical.
“Now, more than ever, in an exceedingly connected world that is disconnected, empathy is critical in healthcare. It improves outcomes, reduces costs and restores the honoured relationship between the doctor and patient.
“These are the lessons I learned as a doctor who has been a patient – becoming paralysed from a spinal cord injury, but unparalysed in the pursuit of purpose in healthcare. I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned in more detail during the Educating for Empathy in Healthcare course.”
The Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, based at the University of Leicester, delivers world-leading training to equip the NHS with empathic, compassionate and resilient healthcare practitioners.
It has devised the three-day Educating for Empathy in Healthcare course to provide clinicians, educators and academics with the skills needed to develop empathy teaching in their own settings.
Attendees will learn how to support others to recognise the barriers and challenges to embedding empathy across the systems they work in, and to develop effective strategies for overcoming them.
The course has been coordinated by Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare director Professor Jeremy Howick and will take place from Monday, April 20, to Wednesday, April 22, 2026 at the Sir Bob Burgess Building at the University of Leicester.