”"I had a few obstacles but I had to shake it off," Bath told "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts. "Hater-ation, segregation, racism, that's the noise you have to ignore that and keep your eyes focused on the prize, it's just like Dr. Martin Luther King said, so that's what I did."
Patricia Bath is a pioneering ophthalmologist who invented a technique that revolutionized cataract surgery.
But as an African-American woman, which was rare in her field as she rose in prominence, she said she faced hate, segregation and racism.
“I had a few obstacles but I had to shake it off,” Bath told “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts. “Hater-ation, segregation, racism, that’s the noise you have to ignore that and keep your eyes focused on the prize, it’s just like Dr. Martin Luther King said, so that’s what I did.”
Bath invented a technique called laserphaco that revolutionized cataract surgery, and in doing so became the first African-American female doctor to receive a special patent.
“I knew that that was a groundbreaking discovery. So I immediately did file a patent for this new technology in 1986,” Bath said.