Patricia's Vision: The Doctor Who Saved Sight by Michelle Lord

In the late 1940's a young Patricia Bath walked by a man begging in the street in Harlem, New York and wondered why his eyes were cloudy?  She wondered what it was like to live in a world of darkness. This made Patricia want to be a doctor but all the doctors she knew were men. And, a medical degree was expensive and took years to obtain. Patricia's family did not have the money to send her school. 

Her parents felts a good education was very important. Her father worked in the marine merchant while her mother cleaned and cooked at a Park Avenue apartment to save for her education. Patricia's mother gave her a chemistry set to further encourage her interest in science. Patricia practiced sewing and mending and treating her dolls!

In high school Patricia studied and worked hard. In college she continued to work hard at her studies while volunteering to read to those who had vision problems. Patricia then enrolled in medical school and by the time she finished she knew she wanted to be an eye surgeon.

Dr. Patricia Bath began working at the Harlem Hospital Eye Clinic where she saw many patients who had never seen an ophthalmologist. She was able to enlist the help of her professors at school to help for free at the clinic.She then joined the Jules Stein eye Institute in California as an ophthalmologist, becoming the first woman to do so. But her office was located in the basement next to the lab animals. Patricia wasn't willing to settle for this and demanded an office similar to what her peers had. She also noticed that she was given the more difficult cases. Undaunted, she accepted them and got to work.

When a blind veteran arrived at her office one day, Patricia wondered if it might be possible to restore the man's sight. He had a damaged cornea and Patricia believed if she could find a way to replace his cornea he would see again. In the operating room, she replaced his cornea with a plastic one, delicately sewing it into place. After the operation, her patient was able to see again.

Another patient sought her out when her sight deteriorated. Dr. Bath discovered that a thin membrane had grown in the eye causing her to be blind. After much thought, Patricia had the idea that using a laser might be the solution. Although lasers had been used on other parts of the body including the cornea, they had not yet been used on a cloudy lens. But Patricia's idea was "to focus a laser beam through a tiny fiber as thin as a single strand of hair." To that end, she travelled to Europe to study this possibility in 1986. After trying several types of lasers she was successful using an xenon chloride laser that quickly vaporized the cataract. She patented her new invention, the Laserphaco Probe on May 17, 1988.

Even in retirement, Dr. Patricia Bath continued to help those less fortunate. She helped a school for the blind in Tanzania obtain computers with braille keyboards. She saw possibility where others only saw obstacles.

Discussion

Michelle Lord discovered Dr. Patricia Bath while researching a project about women who were "female firsts". Like Dr. Bath, Lord also wanted to become a doctor and today is a radiographer, a radiologic technologist who uses X-rays, CT scans and sonograms to make diagnostic images of the body. The author was able to interview Dr. Bath via a series of telephone calls, to learn more about her remarkable life.

Patricia Era Bath was born on November 4, 1942 to Rupert and Gladys Bath. Her parents encouraged her in all her schooling. She worked very hard and was able to attend a cancer workshop sponsored by the National Cancer Foundation when she was only sixteen-years-old. Her accomplishments at this workshop were so impressive, that the program head, Dr. Robert Bernard incorporated them into a conference paper. This led to Patricia being awarded the Merit Award by Mademoiselle Magazine in 1960.

Patricia completed high school in two years and graduated from Hunter College in 1964. Her academic path led her to medical school at Howard University, graduating in 1968. This was followed by an internship at Harlem Hospital. During her fellowship at Columbia University in ophthalmology, Dr. Bath discovered that African Americans had a much higher incidence of blindness and glaucoma. 

In the 1970's Patricia Bath achieved several milestones: she was the first African American to complete a residency in ophthalmology in 1973, she was the first female faculty member in the Department of Ophthalmology at the Jules Stein Institute at UCLA, and she co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness in 1976.

As Lord highlights in her picture book, Dr. Bath invented the Laserphaco Probe for which she received a patent in 1988. She was able to restore the sight of people who became blind due to cataracts.

Patricia's Vision focuses on how Patricia Bath saw possibilities where others simply saw problems that could not be fixed. With this determined attitude she was able to make great strides in eye care and help people who had little hope. The ability to think outside the box and devise solutions was Patricia Bath's singular gift to ophthalmology. Lord includes a Timeline of important dates in Patricia Bath's career and life, as well as a Note from the Author and a page long biography of Dr. Patricia Bath. There is also a Selected Works Cited and a list of Additional Reading About Other Women in Stem that readers may find of interest.

Patricia's Vision is a well written and informative picture book about a woman doctor and scientist that few may know about but whom many owe the gift of sight to today.

Book Details:

Patricia's Vision: The Doctor Who Saved Sight by Michelle Lord
New York: Sterling Children's Books    2020