Seeing It Differently Poses an Interesting Challenge for Some Biomeds

Abstract

When Lee Gren was studying to become a biomed and told people he was color blind, their immediate reaction was, “You won't be able to do this.”Gren is red-green color blind, which means that he sees red and green differently than most people. When he worked as a technician, he typically reset color controls to mid-range, along with contrast and brightness, and asked the person who was having the problem with a piece of equipment what they thought needed to be adjusted. “I found that it was better to get the people who will make the final determination to OK it,” says Gren, who now works as manager of biomedical engineering at West Virginia University Hospitals.On a color spectrum chart in his office, Gren can see some shades of both red and green. But with each, “there's a band in there where it doesn't look like there's any difference.” Although they both look “mud-colored” to him, his clues in distinguishing between them are “light and dark,” he says. If he's holding a red and a green wire, one may be lighter. He will ask someone which wire is which color, and then make a mental note that the lighter of the two is green, for example.Some believe that working as a color blind biomed would pose too many challenges. For example, Brian Weidman feels that color perception plays a big role in the biomed's job because color is so frequently used in the descriptions of what's wrong with a piece of equipment. “Having the wrong color could lead to serious possibilities of patient harm or misdiagnosis,” says Weidman, engineering technician at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, VA. Although his hospital has a requirement in the BMET job description regarding color rendition, the issue has never surfaced with an applicant.Others, however, see the issue differently. There's a belief that all people with color blindness are totally blind to color, but that's not true, notes Greg Goll, biomedical supervisor at Erlanger Health System in Chattanooga, TN. “They still know the grass is green.” At Erlanger, the job-based criteria description states that technicians may need to use color vision 0–33% of the time, or occasionally. “It's just one item on a list that includes walking, sitting, standing, etc.,” he notes.Goll worked with three color blind biomeds during his 16 years as a technician, and found that “they are some of the most careful technicians I worked with.” Rarely, one might ask him to verify a color, but he worked alongside one color blind biomed for years before he knew that the person was color blind.Gren acknowledges that there are times when color blindness can be a handicap. For example, CAT 5 cabling for internet connections involves thin, color-coded wires. “I could see where that would be a real difficulty.” He adds that everyone has strengths and challenges. “Color, in my experience, is subjective,” says Gren. “Even people with normal color vision see things differently,” he says, adding that he's worked with people with normal color rendition who would set the color on a monitor, only to have others complain about it.“I would have no problem hiring someone who is color blind,” Goll says. “The bigger issue would be a sloppy technician that required a project to be redone due to carelessness.”