Community activist and medical innovator, Patricia Bath, has passed away at the age of 76.
Bath was an ophthalmologist who became the first Black woman to receive a medical patent after she developed a more accurate treatment for cataracts in 1988.
As reported by TIME, Dr. Ereka Bath, the medical innovator died from complications of cancer at the University of San Francisco Medical Center.
R.I.P. Dr. Patricia Bath. She was an ophthalmologist who took a special interest in combating preventable blindness in underserved communities. She was the first black female doctor to patent a medical invention, a laser device for treating cataracts. She passed away on 5/30. pic.twitter.com/sf7ncupK4c
— Sankofa TravelHer (@SankofaTravelHr) June 5, 2019
Bath was born in Harlem, New York. She was a graduate of Howard University’s medical school and eventually she became the first Black Surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center.
She dedicated her life to researching epidemic levels of blindness from preventable causes among under-served communities in The United States and overseas. She co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness in the 1970s. This institute was a non-profit organization that declared eye-sight “a basic human right.”
As explained by ABC News, she invented the Laserphaco Probe, which offered a less painful treatment option to cataract patience and restored the sight in patients who had been blind for decades.
Bath also invented a new medical discipline called “community ophthalmology” to address preventable blindness through outreach, education and local provision of medical services.
