Joe’s Journal

Barclay Shepard, part II

Wed, 05/17/2017 - 8:45am

Last week, we visited the early life of retired Dr. Barclay Shepard, one of the most intriguing folks in Boothbay Harbor.

Raised in Turkey, this son and grandson of medical missionaries graduated from Maine Maritime Academy and sailed the world as a merchant marine, 3rd mate. He graduated from Bowdoin and joined the U.S. Navy to help pay the family bills as he studied medicine at Tufts and became a thoracic surgeon  As a Navy doc on the hospital ship U.S.S Repose, he helped save the lives of many American warriors.

After Vietnam, he was ordered to naval medical headquarters in Washington, D.C. where they asked him to oversee hospital design.

“I didn’t know much about designing hospitals, but I had been in a lot of badly designed hospitals, so, I got to learn a new job,” he said.

One of his proudest moments was overseeing the design of a new Naval hospital at Yokosuka, Japan. And, he was instrumental in getting the Japanese government to pay for it.

Retiring as a captain in 1979, he moved to the Veterans Administration.

“I was on good terms with the former Navy Surgeon General who was the new VA Medical Director, and he asked me to join him there,” Shepard said.

Soon, he was sent into a bureaucratic hornet’s nest. It involved Agent Orange, the nickname for an herbicide sprayed all over the northern part of South Vietnam by special Air Force cargo planes. It was designed to kill vegetation and open up the thick jungles for American marines and soldiers. After the war, some veterans started complaining of mysterious ailments they thought may have been caused by the chemical spray.

One day, the VA medical director stopped Shepard.

“Shep,” he said. “This Agent Orange thing is kind of getting out of hand. The Vietnam vets are making a bit of noise, so I want you to start an Agent Orange (research program). Do the research and find out if there is anything to their claims,” he said.

Shepard replied: “I told him I am not an epidemiologist.”

“You’ll figure it out,” said his boss.

Epidemiology is the study of how often diseases occur in different groups of people and why.

Shepard put together a team. For the next seven years, he quarterbacked what became one of the VA’s largest studies, ever.

“The first thing we wanted to do was to compare the (health) data of the veterans who served in I Corps (the northern section of South Vietnam) with veterans who served in other locations,” he said.

The team immediately ran into problems when they discovered the Defense Department personnel records were often not very complete as to where the troops served and when. This meant his team had to search for AO data in other places. They finally found a Department of Agriculture study on crop duster pilots, and another study of workers in the northwestern forests who had worked with herbicides.

One of the key studies involved the Air Force crewmen and pilots who sprayed Agent Orange. Many of them were soaked with the stuff. The group, called Ranch Hands, had kept in touch after the war. The Air Force was able to gather health data from them and compare it to other Air Force personnel who flew similar aircraft but on other missions.

This study showed no significant differences between the two groups.

Meanwhile, Shepard had to testify before Congressional committees investigating a possible link between Agent Orange and the veterans’ ailments. He was also a frequent visitor to the office of the VA Director, Max Cleland.

Vietnam vets pressured the VA and Congress to admit Agent Orange was the cause of their problems. This would mean the VA would care for their medical needs.

The VA now provides care for vets who were exposed to AO.

Shepard’s next job was to assist in the development of computerizing VA medical records for 8 million vets seeking treatment at more than 160 VA centers and a thousand health facilities. His job was to set up a program that converted all medical images such as X-rays, coronary angiograms, bronchoscopies, etc. into digital format.

“We were able to digitize high-resolution images of tumors so that doctors could send them to experts all over the world for consultation,” he said.

In 1991, he retired to Boothbay Harbor and later joined the Woodchucks. I guess he soon discovered that playing with chainsaws and providing firewood for others was a lot of fun.

His new hobby is not a surprise to many. Helping others is part of this man’s DNA.

“It has been a good life,” he said. “I’ve had fun.”