Pioneering eye doctor Patricia Bath has helped restore the vision of millions of people—earning her a place in TIME’s new video series Firsts, which spotlights women who were the first in their fields to reach a level of achievement once reserved for men. Bath was the first female African-American doctor to patent a medical device, the Laserphaco Probe, in 1988.
‘She broke the glass ceiling’. “What a jagged image we use for women who achieve greatly, defining accomplishment in terms of the barrier rather than the triumph. There she is up where the air is thin, where men still outnumber women, but where the altitude is awesome. Our goal with Firsts is for every woman and girl to find someone whose presence in the highest reaches of success says to her that it is safe to climb, come on up, the view is spectacular!” says TIME magazine.
Patricia Bath admits she was “not seeking to be the first” person to invent the laser probe that revolutionized cataract surgery. “I was only attempting to do my thing,” she tells TIME in their new Firsts multimedia project, which celebrates female trailblazers and groundbreakers.
In her interview, she says “Sometimes even now when I’m told I was a “first,” it comes as a surprise, because it’s only through history that you understand that kind of thing. I didn’t realize when I joined UCLA in 1974 that I was the first woman in the ophthalmology department. I simply wanted to be part of a great team at an incredible facility.
I was always a curious child. I was given a chemistry set with a microscope, and I wanted to pretend-play and model myself after scientists. When we would play nurse and doctor, I didn’t want to be forced to play the role of the nurse. I wanted to be the one with the stethoscope, the one who gave the injections, the one in charge. I have to thank my parents for having a gender-open household, for not setting limits.
I was in college between 1960 and 1964, so I did my marching, I did my protesting. When I was offered an office that was not equivalent to that of my male colleagues, I could have marched. But I felt it was more important to focus on the prize. One rainy, cold, lonely night in the lab, we had a donor eye. The laser was finely tuned, the optical fiber was in position and … Eureka! I knew that I had made a scientific breakthrough in removing cataracts.
In science, the evidence is the truth. I knew that my work would win the argument. And it did.”
The magazine is celebrating female achievement in its September 8 issue, which hit stands last Friday.
Beginning with its September 8 issue, TIME magazine unveiled Firsts a multimedia special project celebrating female achievement; features 46 women who broke a variety of barriers, such as becoming the first woman to win a major party’s nomination for president (Hillary Rodham Clinton), co-anchoring a major network news program (Barbara Walters), designing a memorial on the National Mall (Maya Lin), owning and producing her own her own talk show (Oprah Winfrey) and breaking 100 million Instagram followers (Selena Gomez).
“This is not a power list, this is not most famous women or most wealthy women. This really is women who have stories to tell about breaking barriers that we think are instructive and inspiring across so many different fields,” said Time magazine editor in chief Nancy Gibbs. “I think when you read their stories and hear them talk about what motivated them, what contributed to their success, what setbacks they faced, everyone will find someone they can identify with.”
As part of the multiplatform project, there will be 12 different covers featuring 12 different women, on newsstands. Other aspects of the project include short videos, an interactive website, a dedicated social media campaign and a hardcover book.
“FIRSTS: The Women Who Are Changing The World,” will be available in book form on September 19 from Liberty Street Books
Sources: wwd.com, TIME Magazine
