Dr. Priscilla White was a pioneering researcher and physician in gestational diabetes, a type of diabetes that develops during pregnancy. She formed the field of obstetric diabetes and focused her research on improving the outcome of pregnancy for both mother and child.
Priscilla White was born in Massachusetts, USA, on March 17, 1900. She studied liberal arts at Radcliff College and attended Tufts Medical School, graduating third in her class. In 1924, two years after the discovery of insulin, she was recruited by Dr. Elliot Joslin to work at his diabetic clinic. White supervised pregnant women with diabetes and their children.
During this time, White made her first contributions to the field, working on Joslin’s 4th edition of The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus where she wrote the section on diabetes in pregnancy. She later published her first work, Diabetes in Childhood and Adolescence, in 1932.
White was a trailblazer and a key figure in the development of obstetric diabetes. She outlined the stages and treatment of juvenile diabetes, advanced the understanding of the psychological aspects of diabetes, and contributed to the research on transplanting islet cells as a potential cure for diabetes. White also implemented the practice of delivering infants of diabetic women early, which ensured a healthy delivery and increased the survival rate of infants.
In 1949, White developed what is now known as the White Classification of Diabetic Pregnancies method. The method predicts pregnancy complications associated with having diabetes based on several factors such as age of onset of diabetes, disease duration, and the presence or absence of vascular diseases. The classification system is still widely used to assess fetal and maternal risk factors, to distinguish gestational diabetes and existing diabetes before pregnancy, and to tailor treatment protocols.
1n 1960, White was the first woman to give the Banting Memorial Lecture and receive the Banting Medal, the highest award of the American Diabetes Association.
White retired in 1975, at a time where the American Medical Association had not yet formally recognized obstetric diabetes as a field of medicine. In 1978, she published her Classification of Obstetric Diabetes in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Priscilla White dedicated more than 50 years of her life to advance the field of obstetric diabetes. She is cited by Hobart and William Smith College as one of the 12 outstanding women physicians in the world. She died from a heart attack on December 16, 1989, in Massachusetts.
— Written by Elissar Gerges