Ranjana Srivastava

Ranjana Srivastava in 2018

Ranjana Srivastava OAM (born 1974) is an Australian oncologist and author from Melbourne. She is a regular columnist for The Guardian newspaper, where she writes about the intersection between medicine and humanity, and a frequent essayist for the New England Journal of Medicine. She was a finalist for the Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2018.

A Fulbright scholar, Srivastava has also written many non-fiction books related to health and medicine, has appeared frequently on TV and radio, and publicly speaks at events, where she addresses various topics and matters.

Quotes

• I had returned from my Fulbright year at the University of Chicago, blessed with only the joys and none of the irritations of being pregnant with twins. Landing in Melbourne, I went for a routine ultrasound as a beaming, expectant parent. I came out a grieving patient. The twins were dying in utero, unsuspectedly and unobtrusively, from some rare condition that I had never heard of. Two days later, I was induced into labour to deliver the two little boys whom we would never see grow. Then I went home.
• It can be tricky but I try to put my patients' grief into perspective without being insensitive. It's extraordinary how many of them really appreciate knowing that I, and others, have seen thousands of people who are frightened, sad, philosophical, resigned, angry, brave and puzzled, sometimes all together, just like them. It doesn't diminish their own suffering but helps them peek into the library of human experiences that are catalogued by oncologists. It prompts many patients to say that they are lucky to feel as well as they do despite a life-threatening illness, which is a positive and helpful way of viewing the world.
  I will never know what kind of a doctor I might have become without the searing experience of being a patient. The twins would have been 10 soon. As I usher the next patient into my room to deliver bad news, I like to think that my loss was not entirely in vain.
  • "Losing my twin baby boys for ever changed the way I treat my patients", The Guardian (15 June 2015).

• The ASRC [Asylum Seeker Resource Centre] needed a volunteer doctor and I said yes, thinking it would be easy work. In quick succession I saw a little boy with a broken arm, a distressed rape victim, a man with uncontrolled hypertension, and a woman with acute asthma, all of whom had been turned away from hospital. The nurse took the little boy to her doctor friend who would plaster his arm at home, and I rummaged through an old carton of supplies to find some antihypertensives and an inhaler. The rape victim fled, confirming that I was not the therapist she needed. I finished my first shift wistful for the controlled environment of my hospital but conflicted that it, and other hospitals, would deny care to sick patients.
  • "Working with refugees as a volunteer doctor has made me appreciate my good fortune", The Guardian (12 May 2020).
  • The situation described was during the Tampa crisis when "Medicare-ineligible refugees and asylum seekers were routinely denied care in the public hospital system".

• "What kind of a doctor will you be?"
  "An able one, I hope."
  "I hope that you become a doctor who will engage with the problems of the world."
  For an 18-year-old medical student, this aspiration was as professorial as it was intangible. Why worry about global health when the muscles of the back and leg needed memorising? And how did reproductive rights matter when the exam involved peering down a microscope to identify bacteria?
• I once wrote a report on the inequities I had witnessed on an elective rotation in my Indian home town. He spent hours refining it and encouraged me to aim high. Months later, I excitedly told him that my essay had been accepted for publication in the Lancet.
  "But wait, they want to remove the best bits," he frowned.
  A mention in the world’s most prestigious journal was enough for me but this prolific author had other ideas.
  "Tell the editor why your whole essay deserves to be published."
  I gasped at the prospect of committing premature career suicide, but he encouraged me to avoid the easy way out.
  "When you own your work, you signal your integrity."
  He was right. The Lancet eventually printed my essay in full and his pride outshone my relief. His lesson would accompany me throughout life, and we stayed in touch beyond medical school.
  • "Life lessons from my dying professor", The Guardian (10 August 2021).
  • A tribute to Professor Roger Short

• The dog repays our love by being the only one to faithfully meet and greet us when we come home. Instead of mumbling something unintelligible without looking up from the TV remote, Odie skids and skates to the door, paying no heed to the risk of a fractured leg. His tail wags overtime as he makes cute guttural sounds and promptly rolls over for a belly scratch while holding out hope for a snack. It is impossible to resist anyone who takes such unalloyed pleasure at your presence and whose behaviour is not dictated by what happened at the office that day.
• The dog needs boundaries, I warned, as Odie clambered on to laps and snuggled at various feet, ensconced in the folds of a blanket. Then, like a stealthy invader, he crept up the stairs. And then one day, behold, he was on the big bed where we congregate for family time. I screeched and Odie jumped off. He tried again and I growled. But Odie can read vibes. He knew that the consensus view maintained that shoving an innocent dog off the communal bed was not the done thing.
  • "How did our dog work his way across all the boundaries I set in the house?", The Guardian (20 December 2022).