Dr. Patricia Bath

Dr. Patricia Bath was a medical scientist who changed the world of medicine. Growing up in New York she faced a lot of challenges being a woman of color. Despite growing up in a community where there seemed to be few options, she still managed to become a scientist. After graduating high school at the age of sixteen she went on to Hunter College to earn her bachelor’s degree and then went to Howard University to get her medical degree. After her studies, she went to Los Angeles to work as an assistant of surgery and became the first female faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles. Bath went on working and in 1976 she co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness. Here they established the fact that eyesight is a basic human right. Later, in 1981, she began working on the Laserphaco Probe. The Laserphaco Probe changed the world of eye care and invasive surgery. The Laserphaco Probe was a device that was used to treat cataracts. This laser creates an incision in the eye and then a laser fiber enters that incision and vaporizes the lens. After this was done, they would replace the lens in the eye. This technique was faster, less invasive, and more precise. When proposing the idea she was faced with a lot of opposition from colleges. They said it could not possibly be done, and she proved them wrong. In 1988 she received a patent for the Laserphaco Probe and became the first black, female doctor to receive a medical patent.