Photo courtesy of Eraka Bath

On June 13, 2019, I had successful outpatient cataract surgery in my right eye by Dr. Audrey Mok at St. Mary Hospital in Long Beach, Ca. A friend called to check on the surgery and shared some information about Dr. Patricia Bath whose research on lasers advanced cataract surgery.

Patricia Bath, Inventor of Laser-Based Cataract Treatment, Dies

The UCLA ophthalmologist worked to combat blindness in underserved communities.

Jun 6, 2019
SHAWNA WILLIAMS

Retired University of California, Los Angeles, ophthalmologist Patricia Bath, an inventor whose research on lasers advanced cataract surgery and a physician who strove to prevent blindness, died on May 30. She was 76.
Bath became the first African American surgeon at the UCLA medical center and co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness.

“I had a few obstacles but I had to shake it off,” Bath told ABC News last year. “Hater-ation, segregation, racism, that’s the noise you have to ignore that and keep your eyes focused on the prize, it’s just like Dr. Martin Luther King said, so that’s what I did.”

Read the full article at The-Scientist.com:  https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/patricia-bath–inventor-of-laser-based-cataract-treatment–dies-65974