Patricia Bath

Patricia Era Bath

Picture of Bath
Born (1942-11-04) November 4, 1942
Harlem, New York, US
Occupation Ophthalmologist, inventor, humanitarian
Known for Invention of Laserphaco Probe

Patricia Era Bath (born November 4, 1942 in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City) is an American ophthalmologist, inventor and academic. She has broken ground for women and African Americans in a number of areas. Prior to Bath, no woman had served on the staff of the Jules Stein Eye Institute, headed a post-graduate training program in ophthalmology, or been elected to the honorary staff of the UCLA Medical Center (an honor bestowed on her after her retirement). Before Bath, no black person had served as a resident in ophthalmology at New York University and no black woman had ever served on staff as a surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center. Bath is the first African-American woman doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. The holder of four patents, she also founded the company of the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness in Washington, D.C.

Early life and education

Born on November 4, 1942 in Harlem, Manhattan, Bath is the daughter of Rupert and Gladys Bath.[1] Her father, an immigrant from Trinidad, was a newspaper columnist, a merchant seaman and the first black man to work for the New York City Subway as a motorman.[2][3] Her father inspired her love for culture and encouraged Bath to explore different cultures.[4] Her mother descended from African slaves and Cherokee Native Americans.[2] She decided to be a homemaker while her children were young, then later became a housekeeper to help fund for her children's educations.[2] Raised in Harlem, Bath struggled with sexism, racism, and poverty though she was encouraged academically by her parents.[2][5] It was evident by Bath's teachers that she was a gifted student and pushed her to explore her strengths in school. With the help of a microscope set she was given as a young child, Bath knew she had a love for math and science. Bath attended Charles Evans Hughes High School where she excelled at such a rapid pace causing her to get a diploma in just two and a half years.[5]

Growing up, Bath always battled with sexism, racism and poverty. It was hard for her since there were no black physicians that she knew of while she was growing up. She grew up in a predominantly black community where blacks were not accepted into many medical schools. It was also not easy for her to go to medical school since her family did not have the funds for it.[6]

Inspired by Albert Schweitzer's work in medicine,[3] Bath applied for and won a National Science Foundation Scholarship while attending high school; this led her to a research project at Yeshiva University and Harlem Hospital Center on connection between cancer, nutrition and stress which helped her interest in science shift to medicine.[7][8] The head of the researched program realized the significance to her findings during the research and published them in a scientific paper that he later presented.[4] In 1960, still a teenager, Bath won the "Merit Award" of Mademoiselle magazine for her contribution to the project.[3]

Bath received her Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from Manhattan's Hunter College in 1964.[1] She relocated to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University College of Medicine, from which she received her doctoral degree in 1968.[3] During her time at Howard, she was president of the Student National Medical Association and received fellowships from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health.[3]

Bath interned at Harlem Hospital Center, subsequently serving as a fellow at Columbia University.[8] Bath traveled to Yugoslavia in 1967 to study children's health which caused her to become aware that the practice of eye care was uneven among racial minorities and poor populations, with much higher incidence of blindness among her black and poor patients.[3][1] She determined that, as a physician, she would help address this issue.[3] She persuaded her professors from Columbia to operate on blind patients at Harlem Hospital Center, which had not previously offered eye surgery, at no cost.[5] Bath pioneered the worldwide discipline of "community ophthalmology", a volunteer-based outreach to bring necessary eye care to underserved populations.[2]

She served her residency in ophthalmology at New York University from 1970 to 1973, the first African American to do so in her field.[3][2]

Career

After completing her education, Bath served briefly as an assistant professor at Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science before becoming the first woman on faculty at the Eye Institute.[3][2][7] In 1978, Bath co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, for which she served as president.[2][7][9] In 1983, she became the head of a residency in her field at Charles R. Drew, the first woman ever to head such a department.[3][2] In 1993, she retired from UCLA, which subsequently elected her the first woman on its honorary staff.[2][3]

She served as a professor of Ophthalmology at Howard University's School of Medicine and as a professor of Telemedicine and Ophthalmology at St. Georges University.[9][10] She was among the co-founders of the King-Drew Medical Center ophthalmology training program.[11]

Bath has lectured internationally and authored over 100 papers.[11]

Inventions

Bath holds four patents in the United States.[1] In 1981, she conceived of the Laserphaco Probe, a medical device that improves on the use of lasers to remove cataracts, and "for ablating and removing cataract lenses".[1] The device was completed in 1986 after Bath conducted research on lasers in Berlin and patented in 1988,[7] making her the first African-American female doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose.[7] The device — which quickly and nearly painlessly dissolves the cataract with a laser, irrigates and cleans the eye and permits the easy insertion of a new lens — is used internationally to treat the disease.[2][1][3] Bath has continued to improve the device and has successfully restored vision to people who have been unable to see for decades.[9][12]

Three of Bath's four patents relate to the Laserphaco Probe.[9] In 2000, she was granted a patent for a method she devised for using ultrasound technology to treat cataracts.[3]

Honors

Bath has been honored by two of her universities. Hunter College placed her in its "hall of fame" in 1988 and Howard University declared her a "Howard University Pioneer in Academic Medicine" in 1993.[3]

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wilson, Donald; Jane Wilson (June 20, 2003). The Pride of African American History. AuthorHouse. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-4107-2873-9.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Dr. Patricia E. Bath". Changing the Face of Medicine. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Retrieved February 25, 2011.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Lambert, Laura (September 1, 2007). "Patricia Bath: Inventor of laser cataract surgery". Inventors and Inventions. Marshall Cavendish. 1: 69–74. ISBN 978-0-7614-7763-1.
  4. 1 2 "Patricia Bath – Inventor, Doctor, Educator". Biography.com. Retrieved October 28, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Farmer, Vernon L.; Shepherd-Wynn, Evelyn (2012-05-15). Voices of Historical and Contemporary Black American Pioneers. ABC-CLIO. pp. 21–22. ISBN 9780313392252.
  6. ↑ Bellis, Mary. "Patricia Bath - On Her Greatest Obstacle". About.com. About.com. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Henderson, Susan K. (March 1, 1998). African-American Inventors III. Capstone Press. pp. 9–13. ISBN 978-1-56065-698-2.
  8. 1 2 Williams, James Henry (January 21, 2011). African American Inventors and Pioneers. Xlibris Corporation. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-4568-4000-6.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Modern Black Inventors". Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. 101 (7): 55. February 4, 2002. ISSN 0021-5996. Retrieved February 25, 2011.
  10. ↑ "Modern Black Inventors". Ebony. Johnson Publishing Company. 53 (12). October 1998. ISSN 0012-9011. Retrieved February 25, 2011.
  11. 1 2 "1997 Women of Color". U.S. Black Engineer & IT: 42. October–November 1997. ISSN 1088-3444.
  12. ↑ Stewart, David (October 1, 2005). What's the Big Idea?. Salariya Publishers. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-904642-56-5.
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