The doctor who revolutionized the treatment of cataracts and saved the vision of millions of people: Who is Patricia Bath?

Bath was born on November 4, 1942 in Harlem, New York. She was born the daughter of her mother, Rupert, and her father, Gladys Bath, a newspaper columnist, a merchant sailor, and the first black man to work as a machinist. She was encouraged by her parents' support for her education, while her father inspired Bath's love of culture and encouraged her to explore different cultures. She took her first set of chemistry to Bath by her mother, who encouraged her dreams and love of science. Bath and her brother were educated at Charles Evans Hughes High School and both did well in science and math.

Bath was a National Science Foundation fellow when she arrived in high school, which led her to participate in a research project at Yeshiva University and Harlem Hospital Center that examines the links between cancer, nutrition, and stress. In this program, Bath studied the effects of streptomycin residue on bacteria. Thus, she concluded that cancer itself is a catabolic disease and tumor growth is a symptom. She also discovered a mathematical equation that can be used to predict cancer cell growth. The head of the research program recognized the significance of her discovery and published them in a scientific paper. Bath's discoveries were also publicized at the Fifth International Nutrition Congress in 1960. That year, eight-year-old Bath was awarded the "Award of Merit" by Mademoiselle magazine for her contribution to the project.

In 1964, Bath earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Hunter College in Manhattan and moved to Washington to attend Howard University School of Medicine. Her first year in college coincided with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She founded the National Medical Students Association and became the first female president in 1965. In 1967, she focused her research on pediatric surgery in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and was honored with the Children's Bureau National Government Fellowship Award. The following year, Bath graduated from Howard University School of Medicine and was honored with the Edwin Watson "Award of Excellence".

Returning to the Harlem community, Bath interned at the Harlem Hospital Center. During her internship she observed a large proportion of blind patients here and won a one-year fellowship from Columbia University to study and contribute to eye care services here. She started collecting data on blindness and visual impairment at the hospital. Her research and passion for healing convinced her professors at Columbia to operate on blind patients at the hospital center for free, and she said she was proud to be part of the team that performed the first eye surgery at the hospital in November 1969.

In 1970, she began residency training in ophthalmology at NYU and continued until 1973, she became the first African American to do so. Meanwhile, Bath, who married in 1972, had a daughter named Eraka. Bath also made a name for herself by pioneering the worldwide discipline of "community ophthalmology" in 1976. It has been recognized as a new discipline in medicine that promotes eye health and the prevention of blindness through programs that use public health, community medicine, and ophthalmology methodologies to provide essential eye care to underserved populations.

After completing her education, she led a Cornea fellowship program at Columbia University focusing on corneal transplant and keratoprosthesis surgery. Bath was recruited by both the UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute and Charles R. Drew University at Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital. Bath, who later continued her career in Los Angeles, became the first female ophthalmologist on the faculty at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Institute. In 1974, Bath was appointed vice president of the King-Drew-UCLA Ophthalmology Residency Program and later took over as chief.

Rising to associate professorship at both institutions, Bath established the "Ophthalmic Assistant Training Program" (OATP) at UCLA in 1978. Graduates of the program have become key personnel supporting screening, health education and blindness prevention strategies. Later, she established the "Keratoprosthesis Program" to provide advanced surgical treatment for blind patients. With this technology, which is to continue as "KPRO" today, thousands of patients regained their vision. Based on her research and achievements in this area, Bath was selected in 1983 to lead the first national study of keratoprosthesis. That same year, she was appointed Head of the Ophthalmology Residency Program and went on to make her name known as the first woman to head an ophthalmology residency program in the US.

In 1986, Bath considered taking a break from clinical and administrative responsibilities and chose to focus on her research. She resigned from her duty in the field of ophthalmology and continued her research studies as a visiting lecturer in famous centers related to this subject. She then began her early work in laser cataract surgery at the Laser Medical Center in Berlin, including her first experiments with excimer laser photoablation using human eye bank eyes. Retiring from UCLA in 1993, Bath was named by UCLA as the first woman on its honorary staff.

For these studies, Bath coined the term "Laser phaco," an abbreviation for laser PHotoAblative Cataract surgery. At the same time, she developed the "laser phaco probe", a medical device that improved the use of lasers to remove cataracts and "cut and remove cataract lenses." Bath, who first came up with the idea for such a device in 1981, was not able to apply for a patent until a few years later. The device was completed in 1986 after Bath's research on lasers in Berlin. Two years later, she also patented it in 1988, making her the first African-American woman to receive a patent for medical purposes.

Used internationally to treat disease, this device is an invention that quickly and almost painlessly dissolves cataracts with laser, diluting and clearing the eye, and allowing a new lens to be easily inserted. Continuing to develop the device, Bath has succeeded in restoring the sight of people who have been blind for decades.

Bath at Howard University School of Medicine and St. She was a professor at Georges University. A strong advocate for telemedicine, Dr.Bath has supported the revamp of virtual labs to provide surgeons with a more realistic experience possible with 3D imaging. Bath, who gives international conferences, has written over 90 articles.

Based on her observations, Bath wrote the first scientific paper showing that blindness is more common among blacks. She also noticed that African-American people have an eight times higher prevalence of glaucoma as the cause of blindness, she said.

Bath's main humanitarian efforts were seen from her work at the "American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness." Thanks to this, Bath was able to publicize and spread eye health around the world by providing free eye drops for newborns, vitamins for malnutrition and vaccines against diseases that can cause blindness, such as measles. Bath spent her time traveling the world performing surgeries, teaching at colleges, and teaching. 

Bath also helped her travel to Tanzania in 2005 through this organization. There, cataracts became the leading cause of childhood blindness at that time. In particular, this organization helped provide digital resources to students at Mwereni School for the Blind in Tanzania and St.Room School for the Blind in Kenya.

Bath holds five patents in the United States, three related to the Laserphaco Probe, one related to an instrument used to remove cataracts in 2000, and the last one related to a coupling method for removing cataracts in 2003.

Bath was also appreciated by President Barack Obama for her philanthropic work. In April 2019, she testified at a hearing called "Pioneers and Lost Einsteins: Women Inventors and the Future of American Innovation" in Bath, Washington, DC, where she addressed gender inequalities and the lack of female inventors in the STEM field.

Bath passed away on May 30, 2019 in San Francisco, California.