Source: Medical and Nursing Society
A colleague forwarded a recruitment notice from a hospital in Hunan, requiring that "those who apply for medical positions must be tested for penicillin allergy, and if they are allergic to penicillin, they will be disqualified."
I searched for it, not only the above-mentioned hospitals, but also many provinces and cities in China have clearly included this requirement in the recruitment announcement to pass the exam and interview, but just because of a positive allergy test, the hard-won admission qualification of medical students will be cancelled, is it reasonable?
It is undeniable that penicillin antibiotics are commonly used in clinical practice and also have the possibility of causing severe allergic reactions. For this reason, since the fifties and sixties of the last century, the mainland has begun to carry out preventive skin screening before penicillin is used. However, the indications for penicillin skin test in existing domestic medical institutions are excessive, and there are problems such as lack of control, excessive dose of skin test solution, and wrong interpretation standards, resulting in a high false positive rate.
There is a discussion in the Lilac Garden community:
New consensus: Penicillin skin test positive, skin test can also be done! But foreign penicillin doesn't need to be tested at all!
In this regard, it is debatable whether a positive skin test on physical examination proves that the patient is allergic to penicillin.
The hospital requires candidates to take a penicillin skin test when recruiting, possibly to prevent severe allergic reactions when medical staff are exposed to or inhaled penicillin at work. however
1. "Severe allergic reaction" when exposed to or inhaled penicillin is a very low probability event, and screening with a skin test with a very high false positive rate will cause many candidates to lose their qualifications due to misjudgment of "allergies", which is not only inefficient, but also may cause legal disputes because of unfairness;
2. If the medical staff is indeed highly allergic to penicillin, which causes allergies by contact or inhalation, the skin test can also cause a severe allergic reaction that threatens life. Therefore, relying on skin tests to screen for occupational allergies not only does not avoid risks, but may create risks and contradictions.