To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting women innovators, inventors, and leaders in public health and healthcare. Dr. Patricia Bath, the first Black female physician to receive a medical patent, is one of those women. Learn about Dr. Bath’s invaluable contributions to eye health and saving vision.*

About Dr. Bath

Born November 4, 1942, Bath received a bachelor of arts degree in chemistry from Hunter College in New York in 1964 and a medical degree from Howard University Medical College in 1968. She was the first Black woman to complete a residency in ophthalmology at New York University, which was followed by a corneal transplant surgery fellowship at Columbia University. She then started a teaching career at the University of California-Los Angeles, as the first female ophthalmologist at the university’s Stein Eye Institute.

Public health service

While doing her residency, Bath made note of the fact that Black patients had double the rate of glaucoma, and that their high prevalence of blindness was due to a lack of access to appropriate ophthalmic care. Having documented the situation, she then took action to rectify it.

In 1976, she:

• Co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, with the goal of protecting, preserving and restoring sight through education, community service, research and eye care services,
• Founded the Ophthalmic Assistant Training Program at UCLA, whose graduates worked on blindness prevention, and
• Proposed the establishment of a new discipline–Community Ophthalmology–which would provide vision tests and screenings for threatening eye conditions in underserved communities through a combination of:
  • public health,
  • community medicine, 
  • clinical programs, and 
  • daycare programs. 

Innovation and invention

Bath first conceived of a groundbreaking device for cataract surgery in 1981. While developing the technology over the next few years, she was also appointed chief of the King-Drew-UCLA Ophthalmology Residency Program in 1983, becoming the first woman to do so.

On May 17, 1988, she was issued her first U.S. patent (U.S. Patent No. 4,744,360) for her laserphaco cataract surgery device. The new, minimally-invasive device performed all the necessary steps of a cataract removal:

• Making the incision(s) to reach the cloudy lens,
• Breaking up the lens into pieces, and 
• Vacuuming the tiny lens pieces out of the eye. 

Her device was used in Europe and Asia by 2000, and is still widely used today around the world.

Honors and recognition

Dr. Bath is recognized as a laser pioneer, and has received numerous honors and awards from such organizations as:

• The National Science Foundation, 
• The Lemelson Center, 
• The American Medical Women’s Association,
• The U.S. National Library of Medicine, 
• The American Academy of Ophthalmology Museum of Vision & Ophthalmic Heritage, 
• The Association of Black Women Physicians, and 
• Alpha Kappa Alpha, receiving its Presidential Award for Health and Medical Services.

Dr. Bath died on May 30, 2019, and was inducted into The National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2022.

*The National Inventors Hall of Fame. (n.d.) Patricia Bath: Laserphaco Cataract Surgery. https://www.invent.org/inductees/patricia-bath

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