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Patricia Era Bath (born November 4, 1942 in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City) is an American ophthalmologist, inventor and academic. She has broken ground for women and African Americans in a number of areas. Prior to Bath, no woman had served on the staff of the Jules Stein Eye Institute, headed a post-graduate training program in ophthalmology, or been elected to the honorary staff of the UCLA Medical Center (an honor bestowed on her after her retirement). Before Bath, no black person had served as a resident in ophthalmology at New York University and no black woman had ever served on staff as a surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center. Bath is the first African-American woman doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. Her Laserphaco Probe is used to treat cataracts. The holder of four patents, she also founded the company of the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness in Washington, D.C. ==Early life and education== Born on November 4, 1942 in Harlem, Manhattan, Bath was the daughter of Rupert and Gladys Bath.〔"Patricia Bath" (Black Inventor On-Line Museum.〕 Her father, an immigrant from Trinidad, was a newspaper columnist, a merchant seaman and the first black man to work for the New York City Subway as a motorman.〔〔Lambert (2007), p. 70.〕 Her father inspired her love for culture and encouraged Bath to explore different cultures.〔(【引用サイトリンク】website=Biography.com )〕 Her mother decided to be homemaker while her children were young, then later became a housekeeper to help fund for her children's educations. Raised in Harlem, Bath struggled with sexism, racism, and property though she was encouraged academically by her parents.〔(【引用サイトリンク】website=nlm.nih.gov )〕 Bath's mother taught her the importance of reading from a young age which helped lead to an interest in academics. It was evident by Bath's teachers that she was a gifted student and pushed her to explore her strengths in school. With the help of a microscope set she was given as a young child, Bath knew she had a love for math and science. Bath attended Charles Evans Hughes High School where she excelled at such a rapid pace causing her to get a diploma in just two and a half years. Inspired by Albert Schweitzer〔 for his work in medicine, Bath applied for and won a National Science Foundation Scholarship while attending high school; this led her to a research project at Yeshiva University and Harlem Hospital Center on connection between cancer, nutrition and stress which helped her interest in science shift to medicine.〔Henderson (1998), p. 9.〕〔Williams (2011), p. 45.〕 The head of the researched program realized the significance to her findings during the research and published them in a scientific paper that he later presented.〔(【引用サイトリンク】website=Biography.com )〕 In 1960, still a teenager, Bath won the "Merit Award" of ''Mademoiselle'' magazine for her contribution to the project.〔 Bath received her Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from Manhattan's Hunter College in 1964.〔Wilson and Wilson (2003), p. 25.〕 She relocated to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University College of Medicine, from which she received her doctoral degree in 1968.〔Lambert (2007), p. 72.〕 During her time at Howard, she was president of the Student National Medical Association and received fellowships from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health.〔Lambert (2007), p. 71.〕 Bath interned at Harlem Hospital Center, subsequently serving as a fellow at Columbia University.〔 Bath traveled to Yugoslavia in 1967 to study children's health which caused her to became aware that the practice of eye care was uneven among racial minorities and poor populations, with much higher incidence of blindness among her black and poor patients.〔〔 She determined that, as a physician, she would help address this issue.〔 She persuaded her professors from Columbia to operate on blind patients at Harlem Hospital Center, which had not previously offered eye surgery, at no cost.〔 Bath pioneered the worldwide discipline of "community ophthalmology", a volunteer-based outreach to bring necessary eye care to underserved populations.〔 She served her residency in ophthalmology at New York University from 1970 to 1973, the first African American to do so in her field.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Patricia Bath」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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