Patricia Bath was an American doctor. She was an ophthalmologist, or eye doctor. She worked to make sure everyone had access to basic eye care and also invented a new technique and device for cataract surgery. Bath was the first African American woman to receive a medical patent in the United States.

Dr. Patricia Bath discovered and invented a new device and technique for cataract surgery known as laserphaco. Dr. Bath was the first woman to chair an ophthalmology residency program in the United States.

According to an interview she later completed for the U.S. National Library of Medicine, Bath faced many challenges in this early part of her career: “Sexism, racism, and relative poverty were the obstacles which I faced as a young girl growing up in Harlem.

Cataract

76 years (1942–2019)

UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco, California, United States

Deceased (1942–2019)

Benny J. Primmm. ?–2015

Patricia Bath: The ‘Woman who Changed the World’ through Eye Care. Patricia Bath, an ophthalmologist and laser scientist, was not only the first female African-American doctor to patent a medical device, but also the first person to invent laserphaco cataract surgery that greatly advanced treatment for cataracts.

Patricia Bath was the first African American to complete a residency in ophthalmology and the first African American female doctor to receive a medical patent. She invented the Laserphaco Probe for cataract treatment in 1986.

Gholam A. Peyman

Eraka Patty Jene Bath

From 1970 until 1973, Bath was the first African American resident in ophthalmology at New York University’s School of Medicine. During this time, she married and gave birth to a daughter, Eraka, in 1972.

Howard University1968