Colorblindness and med school?

[pparikh]

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I'm red-green colour blind... and seriously suck at telling the two apart... i also suck at colours in generall... yea i know.. what ur thinking... how can a person suck at colours? well let me tell you ... if you don't llike being told that the green block ur holding is red... well you kinda just give up as a kid....

big issue in med school? should i tell the admissions committee?

 

[aliziry]

My best friend's father is an anaesthetist or anesthesiologist for non UK peoples. The only major problem he told me is dont go into surgery.

 

[Depakote]

I wouldn't advertise the fact prior to your acceptance. it will probably suck for visual classes like histo but if you learn the other distinguishing features of the tissue you should be fine.

 

[coffeebythelake]

I'm red-green colour blind... and seriously suck at telling the two apart... i also suck at colours in generall... yea i know.. what ur thinking... how can a person suck at colours? well let me tell you ... if you don't llike being told that the green block ur holding is red... well you kinda just give up as a kid....

big issue in med school? should i tell the admissions committee?

Statistically, I'm sure there are a lot of colorblind doctors.

 

[edfig99]

I'm red-green colour blind... and seriously suck at telling the two apart... i also suck at colours in generall... yea i know.. what ur thinking... how can a person suck at colours? well let me tell you ... if you don't llike being told that the green block ur holding is red... well you kinda just give up as a kid....

big issue in med school? should i tell the admissions committee?

It's not a big issue in terms of the admissions process. I know several r-g color blind students (I'm guessing you're male...it's Xlinked if I remember correctly) You can still go on to a productive career in medicine 🙂

I take the stance that it's important to mention as your about to matriculate into a school, as it does have an impact at certain points in your basic science training -- histology and pathology slides, for example. A headsup to key faculty can avoid problems with evaluation later.

It also impacts your clinical training as well -- most of the bedside rapid tests require intact color vision; some of the vials of medications have red lettering to serve as a warning etc. Some specialties require intact color vision (pathology...maybe ophthalmology) others won't.

So, it's not as big a deal for admissions...
it's a not-so-big-but-still-important deal for the study of medicine
and potential a big-deal with specialty selection x years from now.

 

[pinkblue]

I"ve heard that pathology can be hard if your red/green colorblind. I'm sure when you do med school rotations, you'll figure out which fields work best for you...but I wouldn't worry about it until you get there.

 

[coffeebythelake]

I"ve heard that pathology can be hard if your red/green colorblind. I'm sure when you do med school rotations, you'll figure out which fields work best for you...but I wouldn't worry about it until you get there.

I wonder if red-green colorblind pathologists use false color with pathological slides to make contrast better.