In 2017, while returning from a trip, medical student Shashank Lowanshi sustained a spinal cord injury after a car came hurtling towards the vehicle in which he was travelling, leaving him with no sensation from the chest down. What followed were gruelling weeks in the hospital, multiple medical opinions, and intensive physiotherapy. For many, such a setback would have spelt the end of their professional dreams. But not for Lowanshi, now 29, who has an MD in psychiatry and practises at St George’s Hospital.

Opening up about the incident, the doctor, who hails from Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, said, “My cousins and I were returning from a trip. It was a narrow road, and suddenly another vehicle came speeding from the opposite direction, and my brother lost control. We met with a major accident that damaged my spinal cord. This led to a complete loss of sensation from the chest down, and I became a paraplegic.”