Robert Edward Shanahan

Dr. Robert Edward Shanahan 86

Dr. Robert E. Shanahan of Sylvania, OH died peacefully Christmas day 2017.  “Doc” was best known as a surgeon and Dixieland Jazz musician. He was born February 21, 1931 in Charlevoix, MI to parents Edward and Phila. Due to his father’s naval career, young Robert lived many places across the US, but attended high school in Charlevoix when his father was assigned to the Pacific Fleet during WWII.

After graduating high school in 1948, Robert worked his way through 2 years of civil engineering before switching to pre-med at the University of Michigan. On June 25, 1954, he married OSU graduate Mary Lou Moss, BSN, RN and then began four years of medical school during which their first two children Patrick and Mary Kim were born. Following graduation in 1958 he served a one year surgical internship at New York Hospital in NYC, where son Edward was born. A four year General Surgery residency at St Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor followed, where son Robert H. was born. In 1963, at the completion of residency, he joined the general surgery staff of the Burns Clinic in Petoskey, MI, where daughter Kathleen was born. After 11 years, he began a Plastic Surgery residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and upon completion rejoined Burns Clinic in Petoskey.

In 1983 he became clinical associate surgery professor at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo. Concurrently he opened a private plastic surgery practice and recruited several plastic surgeons to the Toledo area. He served as section head of Plastic Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the Toledo Hospital from 1989 until 1993.

Dr. Shanahan was licensed to practice medicine in the states of OH, MI and WI. He was certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He held memberships in the American Medical Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, the Michigan Academy of Plastic Surgery and the Midwest Association of Plastic Surgeons. He contributed to medical literature, writing a chapter in Wm Grabb’s Encyclopedia of Flaps, and was the Plastic Surgery Associate Editor for the Random House Dictionary of Medicine and Biology.

Robert was an avid vegetable gardener, an instrument rated private pilot and, most notably, an accomplished Dixieland Jazz musician. As trombonist, he recorded several LPs with The Boll Weevil Jass Band throughout the 60s and early 70s. In 1964, he founded the Epsilon Jass Band, which still performs in northwest lower Michigan. He was also a member of The Intercollegiate Stompers who won the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout Show in the winter of 1952-53. As recently as November 2017 he was playing trumpet and singing with The Chefs of Dixieland in Sylvania, OH. He will be sorely missed by fans and bandmates alike.

Robert is survived by brother Bruce of Charlevoix, MI, daughter Mary Kim (Michael) Pagels of Hampstead, MD, son Edward (Nancy) of Toledo, OH, son Robert (Debra) of Canton, MI, daughter Kathleen (Cornel) Van Gorp of Powell, OH and seven grandchildren. He is preceded by his parents, his wife Mary Lou, his eldest son Patrick and his grandson Casey Van Gorp.

Friends may call at Reeb Funeral Home, Sylvania, OH on Sunday, December 31, 2017 from 2:00 p.m. until the service begins at 4:00 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, please consider sending a donation to the Polycystic Kidney Foundation or to ProMedica Hospice of Northwest Ohio.