Did you know that insulin was first administered in Santa Barbara? Dr. William David Sansum, the founder of our very own local clinic, Sansum Medical Clinic,, was the first doctor in the U.S. to use insulin to treat patients with diabetes

Until the 1920s type 1 diabetes was considered a death sentence. Sansum and his associates reached the critical stage of research in early 1922, and by May, 53 year old terminally ill diabetic Charles Cowan received the dose of insulin and it saved his life. This was world wide news and diabetics everywhere were celebrating the removal of their certain death from the disease. In 1944 the Sansum Diabetes Research Institute was established.