Impact of congenital colour vision deficiency on education and unintentional injuries: findings from the 1958 British birth cohort

Sirs,

With interest I read the article of Cumberland c.s. As someone
'suffering' from this same ailment (albeit the less impairing red/green
variant) I would like to add to this my own experience with Colour Vision
Deficiency (CVD) while studying medicine and in later years while being an
intern in Paediatrics.

First of all I had great difficulty in discerning where, during
surgery procedures, muscle fibers ended and tendon fibres started - I
could not see the difference in colour; the same with other structures,
which, as you can imagine, made me less than suited for a career in
surgery.
Later, during my internship in Paediatrics, I noticed I never could see
what others would call 'masking' (the slight bluish tinge around the mouth
of a very ill infant) or the yellowish colour of impending bilirubinaemia.
All in all, I sorely lacked the 'clinical eye', so vital in Paediatrics.
Therefore, I would strongly recommend to introduce a test for CVD at the
start of medical education, as it would preclude unnecessary
disappointment later and could greatly influence someone's medical career.

Sincerely
Auke Wiegersma

Competing interests:
None declared