[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 99 (Thursday, June 13, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E768]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           INVENTOR AND PIONEERING EYE DOCTOR, PATRICIA BATH

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. KAREN BASS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 13, 2019

  Ms. BASS. Madam Speaker, I rise to take special note of the passing 
of a long-time constituent, Dr. Patricia E. Bath, an ophthalmologist 
whose career included a special focus on combating preventable 
blindness in underserved populations. Among many remarkable 
accomplishments, she was the first black female doctor to patent a 
medical invention, a laser device for treating cataracts.
  Just two months ago, on April 3, 2019, Dr. Bath testified before the 
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property in a hearing 
entitled ``Trailblazers and Lost Einsteins: Women Inventors and the 
Future of American Innovation.'' There she noted gender disparities 
that result in fewer women inventors and made recommendations to 
improve the barriers she saw as holding back American innovation.
  Right out of medical school, she was struck by discrepancies in 
vision problems between the primarily Black patient population she saw 
for her internship at Harlem Hospital and the largely white population 
she saw at an eye clinic at Columbia University. Her findings that 
blindness was twice as prevalent among Black people as among white 
people would drive her lifelong commitment to bringing quality eye care 
to underserved people around the globe.
  An educator and researcher, in 1974 she joined the faculties of the 
University of California, Los Angeles, and the nearby Charles R. Drew 
University of Medicine and Science.
  In 1976 she founded the nonprofit American Institute for the 
Prevention of Blindness, to promote what Dr. Bath called ``community 
ophthalmology,'' which advances optic health through grass-roots 
screenings, treatments and education.
  Her research and her work with cataract patients in the early 1980s 
led her to envision the device that became known as the laserphaco 
probe, which uses laser technology to remove the cataracts that cloud 
the lens of the eye. The United States Patent and Trademark Office, 
which has singled out Dr. Bath's achievement several times, said in 
2014 that the device had ``helped restore or improve vision to millions 
of patients worldwide.
  Dr. Bath's dedication, insight and brilliance repeatedly overcame 
challenges from prevailing attitudes about women and African Americans 
in medicine. The recipient of numerous awards and accolades, Dr. Bath 
described her ``personal best moment'' as using an implant procedure 
called keratoprosthesis to restore the sight of a woman in North Africa 
who had been blind for 30 years.
  Forty years ago, Dr. Bath wrote in the Journal of the National 
Medical Association that ``Disproportionate numbers of blacks are 
blinded by preventable causes. However, thus far, no national 
strategies exist for reducing the excessive rates of blindness among 
the black population.'' As we honor her memory and her contributions, 
her challenge to us remains.

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