SHEPARD was born in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, in 1926, the fourth child of Virginia and Lorrin Shepard. Lorrin, the son of American medical missionaries, was born and raised in Turkey. Eventually, he was sent to New Jersey to live with a pair of aunts and attend high school. He then worked his way through Yale and Columbia Medical School. When Barclay was a year old, his parents decided to return to Istanbul. There his father founded the American Hospital and served as its director for 30 years.

Shepard was sent back to America when he was 12 to attend Deerfield Academy. From there he went to MMA, graduating in 1946. “I went to sea for a year as 3rd mate on an American Export Lines victory ship,” he recalled. “I dreamed of a commission in the Navy, but the war was over, and the Navy was downsizing. I decided to go to Bowdoin College and graduated in 1950.”

“What do I do now?” he wondered upon graduation. He had met Martha Loughman at Bowdoin and they had fallen in love, so they married, sailed to Turkey, and Shepard began teaching English at Robert College in Istanbul. His father was still the director of the American Hospital and Shepard found himself increasingly drawn to medicine. After three years of teaching English, his mind was made up: he wanted to become a doctor, following the path of his father and grandfather.