The First African American Woman Ophthalmologist: Patricia Bath

By Alexis Beach
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I was interested in writing about Patricia Bath because I am currently taking a class in Vision Fabrication Care and could possibly pursue a career in the eye care field because there will always be a need for people in that career, as well as many patients in need. Patricia Bath was an ophthalmologist and the first woman member in the Jules Stein Eye Institute.

She was born November 4th of 1942 in Harlem, New York. She passed away May 30th of 2019 from cancer. Rupert Bath, her father, was the first Black man to work for the New York Subway as a motorman. Gladys Bath, her mother, encouraged Patricia’s desire regarding science throughout her childhood. Patricia went to Charles Evans Hughes High School. She earned the National Science Foundation scholarship in which she then attended Yeshiva University. She pursued research on ties with cancer, stress, and nutrition. According to Wikipedia, “In this summer program, led by Rabbi Moses D. Tendler, Bath had studied the effects of streptomycin residue on bacteria. Through this, she was able to conclude that cancer, itself, was a catabolic disease and tumor growth was a symptom. She had also discovered a mathematical equation that could be used to predict cancer cell growth.” She also attended Hunter College and obtained her bachelor’s degree in chemistry, then moved to Washington D.C., and attended Howard University College of Medicine. She eventually became an Ophthalmologist.

Patricia Bath also invented laserphaco which is a device that is used to perform cataract removal in patients’ eyes. She was the first to document the fact that Black patients had an alarmingly large rate of glaucoma, which causes blindness, compared to white patients and this was due to the lack of ophthalmic care for black people. According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, “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.” Patricia was an extremely successful woman in the ophthalmologist field and just in general!