colorblindness... is this ok?

[booboolooloo]

i have an extremely mild form of red/green colorblindness.

1) should i bring this up in my application?
2) will it hurt me later during training/schooling?
3) any specialties i am restricted from?

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[Potato!]

Hi boo,

I too have a mild red/green colorblindness. It hasn't stopped me from pursuing med. (Although, I'm only pre-med). I started a thread about the topic a while back. Basically, people said, "Don't worry about it, it's all good". And they posted the odd thing that you and I will have difficulties with. Give the thread a read.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=125050&highlight=colorblind

You can look up colorblind in the search and you'll find about 4 other threads started by other ppl. Read all the threads, you'll find it quite enlightening, I sure did.

Bottom line: Don't worry about the colorblind thing. But I personally will not be bringing it up in my application. I see no reason I will give ADCOMS any ammunition to hurl at me.

 

[siempre595]

I have at least two classmates who are colorblind. I don't think it's an issue and I would not bring it up unless asked about it. I highly doubt it leads to very many restrictions in the end.

 

[meanderson]

Seems like it would be a problem for pathology, but someone with experience with surg path slides would know better.

 

[pushkin]

My dad's a pathologist of 30 years. He's so colorblind he has to have someone tell him whether his socks are brown or green. I think the way slides look in pathology, it would probably be very rare that you'd have to make fine distinctions between colors per se. You know how when you look under a microscope things have such an altered appearance already? They are practically clear because the specimins are thin and backlit.

The only profession I've ever heard of anyone being denied for because of colorblindness is air force pilot. (I think they have to have 20/20 vision too.) So maybe flight medicine's out! Who knows?

I'm slightly colorbind too, and I'm a girl, which is rare. No problems ever in my life though!

 

[pushkin]

One thing I forgot that was a problem for me--in genetics class, sorting out my flies. I could NEVER tell which ones were brown or red, or which ones were ruby red vs. regular red or whatever. My prof had to do it for me. As long as you are not planning to become an opthomologist for flies, I think you're fine.

 

[MoosePilot]

The only profession I've ever heard of anyone being denied for because of colorblindness is air force pilot. (I think they have to have 20/20 vision too.) So maybe flight medicine's out! Who knows?

Yep, we can't be colorblind and used to have to have 20/20 vision, but now it's not quite that strict, but still has to be correctable to 20/20. From what I was reading one time in the mil med forum, they're pretty liberal with waivers for flight surgeons, but normally they do have to have good color vision (because while it's usually a tech giving us our color vision tests, it only makes sense that the doc could supervise if neccessary).

 

[rtmcad2319]

i have an extremely mild form of red/green colorblindness.

1) should i bring this up in my application?
2) will it hurt me later during training/schooling?
3) any specialties i am restricted from?

unequal cross-over!!!
Molc. Genetics test today!!

 

[Croatalus_atrox]

My dad's a pathologist of 30 years. He's so colorblind he has to have someone tell him whether his socks are brown or green. I think the way slides look in pathology, it would probably be very rare that you'd have to make fine distinctions between colors per se. You know how when you look under a microscope things have such an altered appearance already? They are practically clear because the specimins are thin and backlit.

The only profession I've ever heard of anyone being denied for because of colorblindness is air force pilot. (I think they have to have 20/20 vision too.) So maybe flight medicine's out! Who knows?

In the military, colorblindness is a disqualifier for many career fields. The medical laboratory specialty is one of them. Lab techs often have to report the color of specimens or observe color changes in a few manual tests.

While colorblindness apparently isn't an insurmountable obstacle to being a successful pathologist (as evidenced by your father), it seems that it would make some aspects of the specialty kind of difficult. There are quite a few staining techniques in cytology and histology that require differentiating between color differences in stains and counterstains. So long as some measure of functional color perception is present, practicing as a pathologist must be possible, if difficult. Someone who succeeds in the specialty in spite of that handicap must be very adaptable and has my respect.