Colour blindness (or color blindness) comes in many different forms and severities, but is actually very common. An estimated 8% of men and 0.5% of women affected to some degree. The most common form is deuteranomoly, a type of red-green colourblindness, which you can see in my title photo.
So, does being colour-blind prevent someone from becoming a successful veterinary surgeon, vet nurse or vet tech?
The answer to that question is- no!
I certainly know of a few fantastic vets who are colour blind, and have had long and rewarding clinical careers. However, you will need to learn to adapt, and work with others to overcome scenarios where colour can be important.
For example, in veterinary medicine we use a number of laboratory tests that rely on colours to give us an answer. A urine dipstick, uses different coloured patches to determine the pH and medical abnormalities of urine. Blood tubes are colour-coded to help you choose the right additives to run blood tests. Even needles and catheters are colour-coded for their size. For these scenarios, you might need to ask your colleagues to interpret the tests or choose the correct blood tubes for you. But it won’t stop you from doing your job.
Depending on the type of colour blindness, you may also face more challenges in surgery. Different shades of pink, red and brown can help you determine different anatomical structures and signs of disease. This would not necessarily prevent you from performing surgery effectively. But you might need to rely on your colleagues to point out on you if a colour is abnormal, or if an animal is bleeding!
All that said, its important to remember that being a vet is a lot more than working in a vet clinic!
Vets work in a huge range of industries, whether that be in research, in government roles, in food export or animal welfare. You might find that some of these roles are much easier to adapt to colour-blindness. So you will still have plenty of career options if you find the veterinary clinic is not the place for you.
If you’re still unsure, I’d suggest spending some time as a student in a place where you’d like to work. This will give you a practical sense of how you would be able to adapt to a vet clinic setting.
The Survey
To get a better picture of how being colour blind affects vets and vet nurses, I surveyed my peers from the Instagram Veterinary Community.
Out of 90 veterinary professionals surveyed, none responded that they were colour blind. However, 30% did had a colleague or classmate who considered themselves colour blind.
I asked what kind of challenges colour blind vets and nurses face in practice.
One responder said “[My colleagues] struggle with urinalysis pH sticks, and we had to change the coloured labels on the different surgical kits. It’s also hard to read the doppler settings on cardiac ultrasound, but they learn to cope!”
One student said “My friend found out that he was colour blind in histology class during vet school”
I asked how colour blind colleagues overcome these challenges to work as a vet in practice.
One vet responded “[My colleague] just asks team members for help to do the small tasks they struggle with”.
Another said “[My workmate] often asks others to check his cytology, and relies on shapes. Also, he gets someone else to do the urine dipsticks”.
Further Information
I hope this post answered your question, and has reassured you that colourblindness is no reason to give up on your dream. If not, feel free to leave a comment or reach out to me anytime.
Or, head back to the homepage to read other common questions students have in the “Can I be a vet if…?” series!
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