Color Blindness in Medical Jobs
- Posted by Daniel Flück on July 9th, 2008 filed in Professions
- 12 Comments »
Color vision deficiency is a very common disease—specially among men. So there have to be also many colorblind doctors and health professionals. Do you know if your medic is colorblind? And what if he really is, did he take some wrong decisions because of his color blindness?
Perfect or good color vision is not yet a precondition for any medical jobs. And there aren’t many studies about color vision deficiency and how it affects medical skills. J. Anthonny Spalding did a research on exactly this topic about ten years ago and brought together some interesting and still newsworthy results. He called his paper Colour vision deficiency in the medical profession.
Several studies in the last century have shown, that color vision deficiencies are occurring at about the same rate for doctors as for the population at large. In one of those studies, colorblind doctors were asked about their most common problems caused by their color vision deficiency:
- body color changes of pallor, cyanosis, jaundice, and cherry red
- rashes and erythema of skin
- charts, slides, prints, and codes
- test-strips for blood and urine
- ophthalmoscopy
- blood or bile in urine, faeces, sputum, or vomit
- otoscopy
This is a quite impressive list of diseases which could be wrongly diagnosed or overseen by a colorblind doctor. If they know about their color vision deficiency—not every doctor knows about it—they try to overcome it by closer observation, asking others, and paying more attention to the patients medical history.
By taking greater care and the fact, that there are many diagnosis not involving colors, it is widely accepted that your colorblind doctor performs as good as a non-colorblind medic. There are also not really any serious errors known based on a misjudgment of a doctor suffering from a color vision deficiency.
But still, there are some situations where color blindness could be the cause for wrong decisions:
- If a single sign of observation is essential to take the correct action.
- Scanning of an area for the detection of small features (bacilli, rash,…).
- Special work conditions like speed, alone, and poor illumination.
Dr Spalding concludes, that all this points to the need for screening for color vision deficiency for medical students and doctors. Which could specially be used for better counseling and an informed choice of career. But he also believes, that because of the wide range of specialties, the question of non-acceptance of applicants to medical school need hardly arise.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:28
I’m a doctor, and I’m colorblind. I only find difficult when treating with skin deseases, but I always ask a nurse or other doctor about their opinion. Also, I’ve learned to not only diagnosis because of the color, but also about texture.
September 13th, 2008 at 15:16
Congratulations on your website. It is friendly and accurate and will do a lot of good. It will clear up muddled thinking on the subject. You gave a good summary of what I think following various studies on the subject. And see my article,”The confessions of a colour blind physician” in Clinical and Experimental Optometry” 334-338: Vol.4-5 July 2004. Yes, I did pass the ball to the wrong person at rugby football when a schoolboy. I am called by my second name Tony. I are others are preparing a website too specifically for medical students and doctors.
Kind regards
November 13th, 2008 at 20:02
Thanks very much for this information. Can I assume that nursing is classed under medical jobs and that are no colour vision requirments for nursing jobs eirther.
December 8th, 2008 at 4:01
@Christopher
I’m a nurse, there was an ishihara test during the health check thing we all had to do to get on to the course. I’ve known that I’m moderately red-green colour blind since primary school, so my heart sank when I saw the lady pull out those coloured dots, but she said mine wasn’t severe enough to stop me doing my job properly and to be honest I’ve never had any difficulties
December 8th, 2008 at 4:06
Sorry forgot to mention, when I failed a lot of the ishihara test cards the lady doing the test produced a different test that I did better in, I can’t for the life of me remember what it was, I just know I did better on it! I guess if I had of done badly in the second one was well I wouldn’t have been let on to the course
December 10th, 2008 at 21:15
i’m a medic student but i’m color blind,i know its not a plesure for my future patients knowing that i have this such disability.
i do hope that there is a way of treating this color blindness..
glasses perhaps..i just dont want to be a victim of this thing..
January 2nd, 2009 at 17:11
The info presented here unfortunately doesn’t match my experience. I completed the coursework for my Emergency Medical Technician training and only found out after I passed the certification that all departments would require normal color vision. To my knowledge, the same applies to nurses. My colorblindness was such a problem that I gave up trying to enter the healthcare field. Wish it were different.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:00
The website will be available in about a month. Keep this space open for me to give it to you.
January 22nd, 2009 at 16:35
Thanks for the reply jason i got onto the nursing course and they said my colourblindness was not a problem (im quite mild colourblind). I also know they do not test for colourblindness when applying for a job here in england as i have asked several male qualified nurses.
Dave colourblindness is a reason for non acceptance over here for emt or ambulance tech as its known over here. Think main reason was due to the emergency driving required similar to police etc.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:24
My son is studying in class 12th,he is preparing to medical entrance test.he is keen interested to do MBBS but he is red-green type of colour blind.
Please suggest me ,1-is my son elligible to do MBBS from any medical college ? 2-will he perform satisfactorly in his medical job ?
July 27th, 2009 at 14:34
Im also a colorblind medical student. Im facing problem while studying the content which based on the colors in the diagram. Make a suggestion for me!
January 13th, 2010 at 8:36
I’m a Respiratory Therapist in the US. While colorblindness was a question asked during the health screening for my current job, it had no bearing on whether I got hired or not. In fact, a mechanical ventilator we currently use has digital readouts that display in only red and green. Red is for the setting we put in and green is for what the patient returns. It was confusing for a while but you learn to deal.