A Queensland medical graduate who was left quadriplegic after a car accident says being offered a place as an intern at the Gold Coast University Hospital is "incredible and surreal".

Doctor Dinesh Palipana became a quadriplegic in 2010 when he was in a bad car crash on the Gateway Motorway.

Last week, he was offered an intern placement, making him the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland.

Dr Palipana said it was a huge relief to be offered a placement after years of dedication.

When I was about a year old, I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

I don’t know much about the day I came into the world or what caused my cerebral palsy because I’m adopted. I was born on the streets of Seoul, South Korea, presumably without proper prenatal care. Someone, who I’m assuming was my birth mother, had enough sense to drop me off at a police station with a note that read: “Please adopt her to a family that can raise her.”

A few months later, I joined my very large family in America. I was almost 11 months old.

When somebody has special needs, they may suffer in a wide variety of ways. At times, they may be limited in the things that they are able to do. This is not always because of a physical issue that causes the limitation, it is because other people tend to limit them because of their disability. That was the case with Collette Divitto, but she shows us that it is possible to move beyond it.

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