Dr. Patricia E. Bath


Dr. Patricia E. Bath (1942-2019) was a trailblazing ophthalmologist and laser scientist who helped improve eye health for underserved communities across the globe. She grew up in Harlem during the 1950s, and went on to attend Hunter College, where she received a BA in chemistry, and medical school at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C. It was when she returned home — interning at Harlem Hospital and then completing an ophthalmology fellowship at Columbia University — that she noticed a racial discrepancy in blindness rates.
She conducted a groundbreaking retrospective epidemiological study which documented that blindness among Black patients was double that among White patients, and identified a root cause of lack of accessible ophthalmic care. Dr. Bath set out to fix this issue, bringing ophthalmic surgery services to Harlem Hospital’s Eye Clinic and creating a new discipline known as community ophthalmology, combining aspects of public health and community and clinical medicine. She also co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness in 1976 to help protect, preserve, and restore eyesight around the world.
Her research on cataracts led to her invention of Laserphaco probe, which provided a new method to remove cataracts through the surgical procedure known as keratoprosthesis. Dr. Bath was a pioneer of many firsts — among them, the first woman to serve as chair of ophthalmology in the U.S. and the first female African American doctor to patent a medical device. In 2022, she was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
