Expanded Narrative

Marshall L. Shearer earned his medical doctor’s degree from the Medical College of South Carolina in 1958.  After a general rotating internship, he came to the University of Michigan for psychiatric training.  He met Marguerite Raft when she was a senior medical student at the University of Michigan.  They married in June, 1961, after Marguerite had completed her general rotating internship at Washington DC General Hospital.

Marguerite took a year of advanced training in internal medicine at Wayne County General Hospital in Eloise, Michigan, then a year divided between obstetrics gynecology and surgery at Women’s Hospital of Detroit.

Marshall continued his psychiatric residency, which included a year in research and certification in child psychiatry.  For about 18 months in 1962-63, he consulted one day a week with the Michigan Department of Corrections.  Part of his responsibility was to do psychiatric evaluations on men who had recently arrived in prison to serve life sentences.

After their marriage, they joined the Bushnell Congregational Church on Southfield Road in Detroit.  Marshall taught Sunday school there for one year.  Marguerite and Marshall were recruited by the Minister to Youth, William Straight, to be resource physicians for a sex education program sponsored by the church and put on by Mrs. and Mr. Ventor.  The program was divided between the junior-high and high-school students; the pupils in each group were both male and female.

The following year, the Shearers moved to Dexter, Michigan.  Marshall completed his psychiatric training and joined the University of Michigan School of Medicine faculty full time, first as an Instructor, then later as an Assistant Professor.

Marguerite took a position as a physician at the University of Michigan Student Health Service, where she saw many coeds as patients.  She soon became aware of the problems that many college students were facing in regard to sexual issues, particularly after the university eliminated housemothers and made dormitories coed.  She was the first physician at the Student Health Service to prescribe contraceptives to students.

Marguerite saw a number of female students who had engaged in intercourse without being fully cognizant of what was happening, sometimes resulting in unwanted pregnancies.  She was alarmed by some of the stories related by women who had elected to have abortions, which was illegal in those years.  They included being separated from the psychological support of people they trusted, sometimes even being blindfolded and led down an alley where the procedure was to be done by a complete stranger.  Marguerite was further alarmed by the potential for injury to the women’s reproductive systems and for life-threatening infections.

This led Marguerite and Marshall to volunteer to give sex education lectures, on request, to students living in housing units at the University of Michigan.

Marshall became a diplomat of the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry in Psychiatry, and later of the same Board in Child Psychiatry.  Marguerite became a Diplomat of the American Board of Family Medicine and, later, Medical Management.

At Children’s Psychiatric Hospital at the University of Michigan as Assistant In-Patient Director, Marshall began working with couples in regard to their hospitalized children.  He also consulted for Dr. Hazel Turner of the Ann Arbor Public Schools for one-half day each week from 1965−69.

Marshall conceived the idea of bringing a dog into the hospital, believing that it would have a therapeutic effect on patients ages 5 or 6, up to 12.  They could relate to the dog with a “fresh slate,” presumably with little or no emotional hold-over from their pasts.  The dog would respond to the children’s affection, and would give the kids something to love without making demands on them.  The affection returned by the dog would be directly proportional to the affection it received.  This experiment was supported by Marshall’s section chief, Dr. Stuart Finch, and the Department of Psychiatry chair, Dr. Raymond Waggoner.  With the assistance of Mr. Cleveland, of Hospital Administration, the request was approved.

Some time later, the dog got loose while being exercised on the hospital grounds, and subsequently had puppies.  This created some stir—not so much with the children or the child-care workers, but somewhat with the nurses and quite a bit with some of the psychiatric residents who struggled with how to deal with the issue and how to give sex education to their young patients and support staff.  The experience with the dog in the hospital was published by Elizabeth Yates, one of the child-care staff.*

Dr. Raymond Waggoner was also a member of the Board of Directors of Masters and Johnson Institute.  At that time the organization was known as the Reproductive Biological Research Foundation.  The RBRF had just completed its study of the treatment of sexual dysfunction and was interested in hiring a medical couple who were comfortable talking about sex.  They also wanted a psychiatrist and someone from academia who had experience in teaching.  Dr. Waggoner recruited Marshall and Marguerite.

While with Masters and Johnson, Marguerite and Marshall each carried a load of three new patients every two weeks.  One-third of Marguerite’s cases were with Dr. Masters, one-third with Dr. Spitz, and one-third with Marshall.  Marguerite also was responsible for the RBRF Foundation’s infertility clinic.  Marshall’s caseload was similarly divided.  In addition to treating patients, he was responsible for developing a curriculum with Mrs. Johnson, and for teaching the first group of professionals.

Upon their return to Michigan, Marguerite and Marshall opened a joint sexual counseling practice.  Marshall continued with his general psychiatric practice and had a clinical assignment at the University of Michigan as Associate Professor of Psychiatry. Marguerite practiced Family Medicine.

Marguerite was elected president of the Washtenaw County Medical Society in 1980.  In 1983, she was the first woman elected to the Board of Directors of the Michigan State Medical Society.  She was on the Michigan Delegation to the American Medical Association from 1990 until 2002.

Together, the Shearers have 57 years working extensively with heterosexual and gay couples and individuals in relationships.  They have taken thousands of detailed sexual histories on both men and women.

Marshall L. and Marguerite R. Shearer are now active members of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

*Yates, Elizabeth, Skeezer: Dog with a Mission, Harvey House, Inc., Irving-on-Hudson, NY, 1973

© Copyright 2004 by Marshall L. Shearer, MD and Marguerite R. Shearer, MD.

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