Identical twins Sanumi and Sanuthi Ranasinghe have shared almost everything in life from childhood dreams to hospital wards and on 9 December, they celebrated their greatest shared achievement yet: graduating as medical doctors.
Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Colombo during their early years, the twins knew from a very young age that medicine was their calling. One of their earliest memories involves a simple phone book at home. When Sanumi first picked up a pen, she proudly wrote “Surgeon Sanumi” on its pages. Sanuthi quickly followed, adding “Surgeon Sanuthi” underneath. Years later, after the family migrated to Aotearoa, New Zealand when the twins were just ten years old, their mother brought out that same phone book a powerful reminder of how long their dream had lived with them.
On 9 December, that dream became reality when Sanumi and Sanuthi graduated from Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland, marking the end of six demanding years of medical training.
Known for finishing each other’s sentences and bursting into shared laughter, the twins leaned heavily on one another throughout medical school. Their bond proved invaluable during long study nights, stressful exams and demanding clinical placements. By chance or perhaps fate they were placed together for much of their clinical training during the last three years.
Their shared interest in plastic surgery even took them to Melbourne for a selective placement at the same hospital. Being identical twins, however, brought its own challenges. Staff frequently mistook one for the other as they moved between two hospital campuses.
“They thought we were the same person,” Sanumi recalls.
“So they’d say, ‘Remember what I told you last week?’ and I’d be thinking, ‘I wasn’t even there,’” Sanuthi laughs.
The mix-ups continued into 2025. During one placement, a consultant on Sanumi’s team took coffee orders and later surprised Sanuthi by handing her Sanumi’s drink.
“I was so confused about why I was getting free coffee,” Sanuthi says. “I had to explain that I was actually her twin.”
Not all their experiences were light-hearted. There were moments when missing grades and assessments caused confusion, as administrators assumed duplicate names were errors and contacted only one of them. Still, the twins say the positive experiences far outweighed the frustrations.
This year also brought a remarkable opportunity: both sisters travelled to London for a surgery elective at Hammersmith Hospital. There, they shared a moment few siblings , let alone twins ever experience.
“She was on one side of the operating table and I was on the other,” Sanuthi says. “I was suturing one side while she worked on the other. It’s something we’ll probably never experience again.”
Their interest in surgery dates back to childhood, when they loved crafts and working with their hands a skill set that naturally aligned with surgical practice.
Along the way, the twins faced obstacles beyond the classroom. They recall rare but painful experiences of racism during their school years on Auckland’s North Shore and within the hospital system. One memory stands out for Sanumi: a teacher once told her she would never get into medical school or even an extension class.
“That was very discouraging,” she says. “But I told myself I was going to prove them wrong.”
And they did.
Health challenges within their family further strengthened their commitment to medicine, giving deeper meaning to their studies and future careers.
Now, as newly graduated doctors, Sanumi and Sanuthi are preparing to take different paths, eager to grow into their own identities while remaining each other’s greatest supporters.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Sanumi reflects. “But despite everything, we are incredibly grateful that we were able to complete six years of medical school together.”
From a childhood phone book in Colombo to operating theatres across the world, the journey of Sanumi and Sanuthi Ranasinghe stands as a powerful story of perseverance, sibling strength and the realisation of a lifelong dream — one written in ink long before it was earned in a graduation gown.
