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?
