Patricia Bath

Patricia Era Bath (November 4, 1942 – May 30, 2019) was an African American ophthalmologist and humanitarian, known for championing a community-focused approach to eye care and for innovations in cataract surgery. She became the first woman to lead a postgraduate training program in ophthalmology, and the first woman elected to the honorary staff of the UCLA Medical Center. Bath was the first African-American to serve as a resident in ophthalmology at New York University. She was also the first African-American woman to serve on staff as a surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center.

Born in New York City, Bath received a National Science Foundation scholarship as a high school student to study the metabolic behavior of cancer. She graduated from Hunter College in 1964 with a degree in chemistry, and enrolled in Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC. She organized a contingent of students to provide services to the Poor People's Campaign in 1968. After graduation, she returned to New York to intern at Harlem Hospital Center, where she began research on eye diseases. She was an ophthalmology resident at New York University from 1970 to 1973, and then a fellow at Columbia University for one year. In 1974 she joined the faculty of the Jules Stein Eye Institute, making her the first female ophthalmology professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Bath's research showed that blindness, especially caused by glaucoma, was more prevalent among Black Americans than the general population. In 1976, she co-founded the nonprofit American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness in Washington, D.C., to advance a program of "community ophthalmology" that would expand the availability of treatment for, education about, and prevention of eye diseases to medically underserved populations.

Early life and education Born in 1942 in Harlem, New York, Patricia Bath was the daughter of Rupert and Gladys Bath. Patricia and her brother attended Charles Evans Hughes High School, where both students excelled in science and math. She had also discovered a mathematical equation that could be used to predict cancer cell growth. The head of the research program realized the significance of her findings and published them in a scientific paper. At Howard, she was awarded a Children's Bureau National Government Fellowship Award to do research in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in the summer of 1967, where her research focused on pediatric surgery. The highlight of the award ceremony was the meeting with Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade. Bath graduated with honors from Howard University College of Medicine in 1968.

Bath returned to her Harlem community and interned at Harlem Hospital Center, which had just become affiliated with Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. During her internship, she observed large proportions of blind patients at Harlem Hospital in comparison to patients at the Columbia University Eye Clinic. Before beginning her ophthalmology residency study at NYU in 1970, Bath was awarded a one-year fellowship from Columbia University to study and contribute to eye care services at Harlem Hospital. She began collecting data on blindness and visual impairment at Harlem Hospital, which did not have any ophthalmologists on staff. Her data and passion for improvement persuaded her professors from Columbia to begin operating on blind patients, without charge, at Harlem Hospital Center. Bath was proud to be on the Columbia team that performed the first eye surgery at Harlem Hospital in November 1969.

Bath completed her residency in ophthalmology at New York University from 1970 to 1973, the first African American to do so.

In 1983, Bath was appointed Chair of the KING-DREW-UCLA Ophthalmology Residency Program, becoming the first woman in the US to head an ophthalmology residency program. In 1986, Bath elected to take a sabbatical from clinical and administrative responsibilities and concentrate on research. She resigned her position as chair of ophthalmology and followed her research pursuits as visiting professor at centers of excellence in France, England, and Germany. In France, she served as a visiting professor at the Rothschild Eye Institute of Paris with Director Daniele Aron-Rosa. In England, she served as a visiting professor with Professor David C. Emmony at the Loughborough University of Technology. In Germany, she served as a visiting professor at the Free University of Berlin and the laser medical center.

In 1993, Bath retired from UCLA, which subsequently elected her the first woman on its honorary staff.

Bath lectured internationally and authored over 100 papers. Bath also found that African American people had an eight times higher prevalence of glaucoma as a cause of blindness.

Based on her research, Bath pioneered the discipline of community ophthalmology in 1976. After observing epidemic rates of preventable blindness among underserved populations in urban areas in the US as well as underserved populations in Third World countries. Community ophthalmology was described as a new discipline in medicine that promotes eye health and blindness prevention through programs using methodologies from public health, community medicine, and ophthalmology to bring necessary eye care to underserved populations. Bath claimed her "personal best moment" was while she was in North Africa and, using keratoprosthesis, was able to restore the sight of a woman who been blind for over 30 years.

With AIPB, Bath traveled to Tanzania in 2005, where cataracts were the main cause of childhood blindness. In Africa, AIPB provided computers and other digital resources for visually impaired students, specifically at the Mwereni School for the Blind in Tanzania and St. Oda School for the Visually Impaired in Kenya.

In April 2019, Bath testified in a hearing called the "Trailblazers and Lost Einsteins: Women Inventors and the Future of American Innovation" at the Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. Bath discussed gender disparities in the STEM and lack of female inventors.

Inventions In 1986, Bath conducted research in the laboratory of Danièle Aron-Rosa, a pioneer researcher in lasers and ophthalmology at Rothschild Eye Institute of Paris, and then at the Laser Medical Center in Berlin, where she was able to begin early studies in laser cataract surgery, including her first experiment with excimer laser photoablation using human eye bank eyes. and developed the laserphaco probe, a medical device that improves on the use of lasers to remove cataracts, and "for ablating and removing cataract lenses". Bath first had the idea for this type of device in 1981, but did not apply for a patent until several years later. The device was completed in 1986 after Bath conducted research on lasers in Berlin and patented in 1988, making her the first African-American woman to receive a patent for a medical purpose.

Bath held five patents in the United States. Three of Bath's five patents relate to the Laserphaco Probe. 2000: Smithsonian Museum's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation included her in the Innovative Lives program 2001: American Medical Women's Association induction into Hall of Fame 2011: Dr. Bath was interviewed for the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Museum of Vision oral history collection that "preserves the memories and experiences of people whose lives are an inspiration." 2012: Tribeca Film Festival Disruptive Innovation Award 2013: Association of Black Women Physicians Lifetime Achievement Award for Ophthalmology Contributions 2014: Howard University Charter Day Award for Distinguished Achievement in Ophthalmology and Medicine 2017: Medscape one of 12 "Women Physicians who Changed the Course of American Medicine" 2017: Time Magazine "Firsts: Women Who Are Changing the World" for being the first to invent and demonstrate laserphaco cataract surgery 2017: Hunter College Hall of Fame induction 2018: New York Academy of Medicine John Stearns Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Clinical Practice, for invention of laserphaco cataract surgery 2018: Alliance for Aging research: Silver Innovator Award for contributions and research towards blindness prevention 2021, it was announced that she would be one of the first two black women (along with Marian Croak) to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. 2024, inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame

Dr. Bath had also been a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons from 1976 to 1989, a fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, as well as a member of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. "Patricia Bath and Laser Surgery" by Ellen Labrecqua, and "The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes: The Story of Dr. Patricia Bath" by Julia Finley Mosca, which was cited by both the National Science Teachers Association and the Chicago Public Library's list of best children's books of the year. She is also the subject of a short play, "The Prize (about Dr. Patricia Bath)" by Cynthia L. Cooper