In 1988, Patricia Bath patented a device that used a laser through a tiny 1 mm incision to remove a cataract, turning the procedure into a matter of minutes

Here's a fact that defies imagination: the laser-assisted cataract surgery performed today in hospitals throughout the U.S. dates back to an invention patented by a Black woman ophthalmologist in 1988 and first tested in a country where she couldn't even get funding or lab access. According to The Lemelson Center, Dr. Patricia Bath worked in the early 1980s to conceptualize a laser that could replace the scalpel in cataract surgery, subsequently patenting the device (US Patent 4,744,360) and pioneering her invention, the Laserphaco Probe. It is a status the inventor herself also confirms in the Lemelson Center's article, being the first African American woman physician to receive a U.S. patent for a medical invention.

What do we know about cataracts?

A cataract is a clouding of the lens in the eye that affects vision; according to a 2015 article titled “Increasing incidence of cataract surgery: Population-based study,” published in the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery, the condition is highly prevalent in the U.S., with over 22 million Americans affected and the number expected to rise as the population ages.

If left untreated, cataracts lead to progressive loss of eyesight, culminating in blindness eventually, a condition that can be prevented with a surgical intervention. The conventional treatment for cataracts throughout the twentieth century consisted of removing the affected lens with a scalpel in a procedure taking about an hour and leaving the patient in post-op recovery for some days.

The invention that shrank surgery to minutes

In 1981, Dr. Patricia Bath conceptualized using a laser to make the surgery less invasive by precisely vaporizing the clouded lens and sucking it out with the help of a miniature probe. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office's own description of her invention, Bath conducted years of research to discover the temperature range and laser wavelengths required for such a procedure, as well as the optimal size of an incision. Her invention was minimally invasive to the point of being nearly non-invasive: some even attribute the size of the incision in her surgeries to under a millimeter. The time required for such a procedure also dropped to less than an hour.

What does the invention tell us about Dr. Bath as a person?

The story of Dr. Bath's invention is the story of determination and vision, but perhaps more importantly, it is the story of her struggle to get the resources and equipment needed to test her invention. Bath was reportedly unable to gain access to the equipment necessary in the U.S., conducting some research in Berlin and Paris before presenting her findings back in the U.S., according to the Lemelson Center's article about the inventor. There are few better examples of the need for visionary action when it comes to medicine; innovation in medical care rarely comes without overcoming significant barriers on the road to implementation.

Dr. Bath did not stop with the invention; she went on to co-found the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness and promote community ophthalmology to help prevent blindness from untreated cataracts among thousands of people who would not otherwise have access to vision care, a problem that persists to this day, contributing to the disparity in cataract surgery rates between different races documented by the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery study.