1 Cauac
Blue Magnetic Storm
We sail –
Along shallow Streams of Obscurity
Into the wide River of Mediocrity
Across tempestuous Seas of Humanity
Through black Storms of Loneliness
Until the distant Shores of Bliss –
Find us.
©Kleomichele Leeds
Patricia Bath, MD
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. The holder of four patents, she also founded 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 is the daughter of Rupert and Gladys Bath. 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. Her father inspired her love for culture and encouraged Bath to explore different cultures. Her mother descended from African slaves. She decided to be a homemaker while her children were young and later became a housekeeper to help fund her children's education. Raised in Harlem, Bath struggled with sexism, racism, and poverty though she was encouraged academically by her parents. It was evident to Bath's teachers that she was a gifted student and they pushed her to explore her strengths in school. With the help of a microscope set she was given as a young child, Bath discovered her love for math and science. Bath attended Charles Evans Hughes High School where she excelled at such a rapid pace that she earned her diploma in just two and a half years.
There were no black physicians that Bath knew of in her youth. She was raised in a predominantly black community, where blacks were not accepted into many medical schools. It was difficult for her to attend medical school since her family did not have the financial resources.
Inspired by Albert Schweitzer's work in medicine, Bath applied for and won a National Science Foundation Scholarship while attending high school; this led to a research project at Yeshiva University and Harlem Hospital Center on connections between cancer, nutrition and stress which shifted her field of concentration to medicine. The head of the research program realized the significance of her findings and published them in a scientific paper which he later presented. In 1960, while 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. She relocated to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University College of Medicine, from which she received her medical degree in 1968. 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.
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 resulted in her awareness, that the practice of eye care was uneven among racial minorities and poor populations, with much higher incidence of blindness among black and poor patients. She determined that, as a physician, she would address this issue. She persuaded her professors from Columbia to operate gratis on blind patients at Harlem Hospital Center, which had not previously offered eye surgery. Bath pioneered the worldwide discipline of "community ophthalmology", a volunteer-based outreach service to bring necessary eye care to under served populations.
She served her residency in ophthalmology at New York University from 1970 to 1973, the first African American in her field to do so.
Career
After completing her education, Bath served briefly as an assistant professor at Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science before becoming the first woman on faculty at the Eye Institute. In 1978, Bath co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, for which she served as president. In 1983, she became the head of a residency in her field at Charles R. Drew, the first woman ever to head such a department. In 1993, she retired from UCLA, which subsequently elected her the first woman on its honorary staff.
She served as a professor of Ophthalmology at Howard University's School of Medicine and as a professor of Telemedicine and Ophthalmology at St. Georges University. She was among the co-founders of the King-Drew Medical Center ophthalmology training program.
Bath has lectured internationally and authored over 100 papers.
Inventions
Bath holds four patents in the United States. In 1981, she conceived the Laserphaco Probe, a medical device that improves on the use of lasers to remove cataracts, and "for ablating and removing cataract lenses". The device was completed in 1986 after Bath conducted research on lasers in Berlin and patented it in 1988, making her the first African-American woman to receive a patent for a medical purpose. The device — which quickly and nearly painlessly dissolves the cataract with a laser, irrigates and cleans the eye and permits the easy insertion of a new lens — is used internationally to treat the disease. Bath has continued to improve the device and has successfully restored vision to people who have been unable to see for decades.
Three of Bath's four patents relate to the Laserphaco Probe. In 2000, she was granted a patent for a method she devised for using ultrasound technology to treat cataracts.
Honors
Bath has been honored by two of her universities. Hunter College placed her in its "hall of fame" in 1988 and Howard University declared her a "Howard University Pioneer in Academic Medicine" in 1993. A children's picture book on her life and science work, The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes: The Story of Dr. Patricia Bath (The Innovation Press, ISBN 9781943147311) was published in 2017, and was cited by both the National Science Teachers Association and the Chicago Public Library's list of best kids books of the year.*
CAUAC
Kin 79: Blue Magnetic Storm
I unify in order to catalyze
Attracting energy
I seal the matrix of self-generation
With the magnetic tone of purpose
I am guided by my own power doubled.
Any time that you make a choice, you create a scene in one of your astral movies.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2017-2018.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Muladhara Chakra (Seli Plasma)
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