Personal Note from the Husband of the Late Nancy Packert Shashaty, MD ’69

It is with sadness that I inform you of the death of my wife, Nancy Packert Shashaty, M.D., Class of 1969, on June 21, 2018, due to adenocarcinoma of the lung which she had survived for exactly 10 years. She was born in Pittsburgh on December 7, 1941 (THE Pearl Harbor Day)and was raised in Garden City after her Brooklyn-born parents returned to the New York City area, where her father was employed by the Singer Sewing Machine Co.  She was a graduate of the College of New Rochelle and had been a laboratory technologist for Dr. Vincent P. Dole during the time the latter was espousing methadone treatment for heroin addiction.

After graduation from Downstate, she began a family while completing a  residency program in Pediatrics and a Fellowship in Developmental Pediatrics at the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., all on a part-time basis.  Beginning in the early 1980’s, she was on the pediatric faculty at Georgetown and subsequently became the Assistant Medical Director at the Hospital for Sick Children in Washington. She was a long-term member of the Admissions Committee at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, where she was a strong advocate for discovering talent, particularly among minorities and women, and advocating for their admission.  Many such persons who were thus admitted continued to maintain contact with her for many years after graduating.

She retired during the first decade of the 21st century but continued to be available to provide eagerly sought advice to parents of developmentally-impaired children. She was a mistress of personal interaction and never allowed a problem to fester without recommending a useful recommendation. She was beloved by all who knew her, and in particular by her husband (George), her three children (Joseph, Elizabeth, and Michael) and her nine grandchildren, with whom she never tired even as her stamina diminished.  Her life was a blessing to many.