Whyte was one of five women who responded, the others being Grace Vale, Clara Stone, and Elizabeth and Annie O'Hara.

[3] On the 21 February 1887, the university council met and approved a motion to allow women into medicine, ten votes to three.

[2][3] During her studies, Whyte earned the praise of Thomas Naghten Fitzgerald for her skills in dissection and surgical work.

Whyte met Horatio Percy Martell, (1862–1932) a fellow doctor at the Royal Women's Hospital, they were engaged in 1892,[4] and married on 16 April 1895.

[5] In April of 1902, Whyte, then known as Dr. Martell, was appointed as the senior resident surgeon in the Midwifery department of the Royal Women's Hospital.