Visually Impaired People as Doctors

The Blind Doctor: The Jacob Bolotin Story

 More than sight, to succeed in life as an individual what is important is a vision or a dream. And these are not just limited to people who have a physical vision i.e the sense of sight. With a determined vision, relentless hard work and courage to take the plunge, people who deal with visual impairment can conquer their challenges and work successfully in their chosen fields. Most of us will not be able to imagine blind people as doctors or professionals in the medical field. It is the inner stigma attached to blindness that will prevent us from doing so. But the fact is, being blind takes nothing away from a person's talents, though it does set some physical limitations which need to be kept in mind and worked around. There are a number of people, both overseas and in India who have defied the norm and become successful doctors despite of visual impairment.

Jacob Bolotin was the first totally blind physician to ever practice medicine in the USA. He graduated from the Chicago College of medicine in 1924. His story is especially inspiring because he overcame social and technical barriers to pursue his passion successfully at a time when there was a lot of social stigma and technological backwardness. He set the foundation stone for other blind people to become doctors.

Tim Cordes is another example of a blind physician. He graduated in the US in 2005 and is cited to be an extremely intelligent and brilliant doctor with an affable personality who practices medicine quite efficiently.

Back home in India, YG Parameshwara was the first blind doctor from the Karnataka University. He lost his sight in his final year of college but not his determination. Eventually he graduated and practiced medicine till 1979 and later became a professor.

Recently, a judgement of the Supreme Court of India in 1979 determined that color blind students cannot be denied admission to medical colleges just because of their condition and called the practice regressive. As a result of this judgement, the medical council of India removed the screening of color blindness for candidates and paved the way for their admission. Anka Toppo from Jharkhand was also a blind doctor who graduated from AIIMS in 2004 after facing many hurdles. After approaching the National Human Rights Commission, the examination procedure was amended and he was given admission. Later on, his internship was made suitable for his needs.

Going by these heartening inspirational examples, we can easily note that it is possible for blind people to pursue a career in the medical field, provided they are given the opportunity, guidance, adaptive technology and most importantly the encouragement to do so. It is most crucial to break all the negative stereotypes surrounding blind professionals in every field including this one and treat them no differently than other qualified professionals. More blind people should be encouraged to take up medicine after doing appropriate research keeping in mind their physical limitations and introducing suitable measures for them to do so, so that blind doctors become a normal and accepted phenomenon instead of being an exception to the norm. Empowerment of the specially abled to give them a meaningful life, one in which they choose to pursue their passion- be it in medicine or any other field- is the way to go.