Laserphaco Catarac Surgery
U.S. Patent No. 4,744,360
Inducted in 2022
Born Nov. 4, 1942 – Died May 30, 2019
Dr. Patricia Bath invented laserphaco, a new device and technique to remove cataracts. It performed all steps of cataract removal: making the incision, destroying the lens, and vacuuming out the fractured pieces. Bath is recognized as the first Black woman physician to receive a medical patent.
After completing an ophthalmology residency at New York University, Bath completed a corneal transplant surgery fellowship at Columbia University. While a fellow, she was recruited by UCLA Medical Center and Charles R. Drew University to co-find an ophthalmology residency program at Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital. She then began her career at UCLA, becoming the first woman ophthalmologist on the faculty of its prestigious Jules Stein Eye Institute. She was appointed assistant chief of the King-Drew-UCLA Ophthalmology Residency Program in 1974 and chief in 1983. Bath conceived her laserphaco device in 1981, published her first paper in 1987 and had her first U.S. patent issued in 1988. Her minimally invasive device was used in Europe and Asia by 2000.
When Bath interned in ophthalmology, she was one of the first to document that Black patients had double the rate of glaucoma and realized that the high prevalence of blindness among Black patients was due to a lack of access to ophthalmic care. In a seminal paper in 1976, she proposed the discipline of Community Ophthalmology, combining public health, community medicine, and clinical and daycare programs to test vision and screen threatening eye conditions in historically underserved communities. That same year, she co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, designed to protect, preserve, and restore sight through education, community service, research, and eye care services. She also founded the Ophthalmic Assistant Training Program at UCLA, whose graduates worked on blindness prevention.
Bath received her Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry from Hunter College in 1964 and her medical degree from Howard University in 1968. Included among her many achievements, she was the first Black woman to complete a residency in ophthalmology at NYU and the first woman to chair an ophthalmology residency program in the United States at Drew-UCLA. She has been recognized as a laser pioneer, and among her numerous honors she has been recognized by 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 with its Lifetime Achievement Award for Ophthalmology Contributions, and by Alpha Kappa Alpha with its Presidential Award for Health and Medical Services.
Dr. Patricia Bath Laserphaco Cataract Surgery U.S. PATENT NO. 4,744,360
1. In 1959, Patricia Bath received a grant from the National Science Foundation to attend the Summer Institute in Biomedical Science at Yeshiva University in New York, where she worked on a project studying the relationship between cancer, nutrition, and stress.
2. She was one of Mademoiselle magazine’s Ten Young Women of the Year for 1960, recognized in the January 1961 issue for cancer research she conducted at Harlem Hospital.
3. She attended Hunter College in New York and joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, a tie which she maintained throughout her life.
4. While attending Howard University College of Medicine, Bath was awarded the Edwin J. Watson Prize for Outstanding Student in Ophthalmology and mentored by Dr. Lois Jones. Also at Howard, she was an activist and student organizer, co-founded the Student National Medical Association and worked on the Poor People’s Campaign.
5. From 1970-73, Bath was the first Black resident in ophthalmology at New York University’s School of Medicine.
6. She was the first Black woman surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center. Bath also was the first female faculty member of the UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute. At UCLA, she also founded the Ophthalmic Assistant Training Program (OATP) in 1978. OATP graduates provided screening, health education and support for blindness prevention strategies.
7. In 1976, she co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness and coined the phrase Community Ophthalmology, which pushed for using public health approaches to eradicate preventable blindness.
8. When she received a patent for her laserphaco probe on May 17, 1988, Bath became the first Black female physician to receive a U.S. patent for a medical invention.
9. She received the Tribeca Film Festival Disruptive Innovation Award in 2012.
10. Bath was awarded five U.S. patents.
