Patricia Bath

Patricia Era Bath was born November 4, 1942, in Harlem, New York. She is an American ophthalmologist, inventor and academic. Patricia Bath graduated from the Howard University School of Medicine in 1968 and completed specialty training in ophthalmology and corneal transplant at both New York University and Columbia University. She served her residency in ophthalmology at New York University from 1970 to 1973, the first African American to do so in her field. In 1975, Dr. Bath became the first African-American woman surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center and the first woman to be on the faculty of the UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute.  In 1981, Dr. Bath began creation of the Laserphaco Probe which is a medical device that improves on the use of lasers to remove cataracts, and "for ablating and removing cataract lenses". In 1988, Dr. Bath became the first African American female doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. Hunter College placed Dr. Bath in its "hall of fame" in 1988 and Howard University declared her a "Howard University Pioneer in Academic Medicine" in 1993.