Augustus A. White III, M.D., Ph.D. 1957
One of the foremost orthopaedic surgeons in the world, Gus White was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of a doctor and a librarian. Graduating from Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts, Gus then matriculated at Brown University where he completed his pre-medical studies and earned an A.B. degree in 1957. On the football field, Gus played both ways and started his senior year as a receiver. One of his greatest memories happened when he caught a deflected pass to score and beat Cornell.
Gus then became the first African American graduate of the Stanford University School of Medicine where he served as President of the student body. Upon receiving his Ph.D. in orthopaedic biomechanics from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, Gus went to work as a surgical resident at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. He also served in Vietnam as a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, earning a Bronze Star.
Currently a professor of orthopaedic surgery at Harvard Medical School as well as the Ellen and Melvin Gordon Distinguished Professor of Medical Education, Gus specializes in the care of the spine. For 13 years, he served as chief of the orthopaedic surgery department at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Gus also founded the academic orthopaedic program at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In 1992, he became a director of Capstone Therapeutics and in 2001 became a director of Zimmer Holdings, Inc.
A noted authority in his specialty, Gus has co-written Clinical Biomechanics of the Spine, a standard reference book for orthopedists. He has also written Your Aching Back: A Doctor's Guide to Relief, designed to tell back pain patients all they need to know. His most recent book, Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Health Care will be published by Harvard University Press in January 2011.
Gus and his wife, Anita, whom he met during his Ph.D. studies at the Karolinska Institute, reside in Weston, Massachusetts. They have three daughters.
