Forty years later, as expected, the procedure has come a long way. At the time, it was more advanced than any other technology. It took her nearly five years of research and testing to make it work and she had to apply for a patent.
She was the first African-American female doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. Today, her device is used around the world. Her interest in medicine first started in childhood. She even earned several awards for scientific research as early as age She ended up getting a medical degree from Howard University, interned at Harlem Hospital from to , and then completed a fellowship in ophthalmology at Columbia University from to Her work at Harlem Hospital was instrumental to bringing eye care to the Black community.
She noticed half the patients were blind or visually impaired, and compared that to the eye clinic at Columbia, where there were few blind patients. This led her to conduct a study, where she found blindness among Blacks was double that of whites.
She concluded the blindness within the Black community was due to a lack of access to eye care. She proposed a new discipline, known as community ophthalmology, which is now operative around the world. Patricia Bath was the first African American to complete a residency in ophthalmology in In , Bath co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, which established that "eyesight is a basic human right. She patented the device in , becoming the first African American female doctor to receive a medical patent.
Patricia Era Bath was born on November 4, , in New York City's Harlem neighborhood to Rupert Bath, the first Black motorman for the New York City subway system, and Gladys Bath, a housewife and domestic worker who used her salary to save money for her children's education.
Bath was encouraged by her family to pursue academic interests. Her father, a former Merchant Marine and an occasional newspaper columnist, taught Bath about the wonders of travel and the value of exploring new cultures. Her mother piqued the young girl's interest in science by buying her a chemistry set.
As a result, Bath worked hard on her intellectual pursuits and, at the age of 16, became one of only a few students to attend a cancer research workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The program head, Dr. Robert Bernard, was so impressed with Bath's discoveries during the project that he incorporated her findings in a scientific paper he presented at a conference. The publicity surrounding her discoveries earned Bath the Mademoiselle magazine's Merit Award in After graduating from high school in only two years, Bath headed to Hunter College, where she earned a bachelor's degree in She then attended Howard University to pursue a medical degree.
Bath graduated with honors from Howard in , and accepted an internship at Harlem Hospital shortly afterward. The following year, she also began pursuing a fellowship in ophthalmology at Columbia University. Through her studies there, she discovered that African Americans were twice as likely to suffer from blindness than other patients to which she attended, and eight times more likely to develop glaucoma.
This treatment was revolutionary and helped Dr. Bath restore vision in patients who had been blind for more than three decades. Today, over 25 million Americans suffer from cataracts.
Fortunately, due to the research and developments of those who came before us, we now have lenses that offer a 98 percent success rate. If your vision is clouded due to cataracts, our team can help improve your quality of life. To learn more about cataract surgery, schedule a visit at one of our six locations. Cataracts are a common age-related vision problem. According to numbers from the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Half of all people age 75 or older have cataracts.
Cataract surgery improves vision.. Clark has helped countless people in the Philadelphia,. Cataracts are extremely common in aging adults. This condition is characterized by cloudy or blurry vision.
Fortunately, cataracts can be successfully treated with corrective eyewear or cataract surgery. LASIK, which stands for laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis, is one of the most popular elective procedures in the United States.
The procedure has a high success rate for patients with nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. This procedure reshapes the cornea using laser technology.
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