Leon N. Shapiro MD

Dr. Shapiro was born in Boston on Oct. 8 1926. He attended Boston Latin School and entered Harvard College in 1941. Due to the Second World War, he left Harvard early to attend medical school. He received a commission in the Navy and his medical degree from Boston University Medical School in1947. The next year he married the former Rose Kurhan. They had met as teenagers on Nantasket Beach. After completing his military service, they settled in Newton where he maintained a private practice and a teaching career. Summers were spent in Wellfleet on Cape Cod with his wife and family. Rose Shapiro died in 1985.

While a Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, Dr. Shapiro took part in the marches in Selma, Alabama with members of the Medical Community for Human Rights (MCHR).

In 1966 he began work with medically underserved communities first at the Tufts-Columbia Point Health Center and then with the Tufts-Delta Community Health Center in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. He was a member of the first Physicians for Human Rights mission to the West Bank/Gaza Strip during the first Intifada. For several years Dr. Shapiro worked with the Department of Legal Medicine focused on improving the care of mentally ill prisoners.

In 1975, Dr. Shapiro moved to New York, where he was a Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell University Medical School, Medical Director of the New York Hospital, Westchester Division, and Training Analyst at Columbia Psychoanalytic Society. He later returned to Boston to serve as Director of Training at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and as a training analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. Throughout his career he was particularly dedicated to education and training.

Dr. Shapiro married Dr. Laurie Rosenblatt in 1991. In 1992 he retired and returned to Harvard to complete his BA in English Literature. Dr. Shapiro was an active member of the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement and an avid reader. He had a lifelong appreciation of Gilbert and Sullivan, Tom Lehrer, Mel Brooks, Stan Freberg, and Sigmund Freud.

He is survived by his wife, Laurie Rosenblatt, his children Carol L. (Templeton Peck) Shapiro, Robert A. (Nancy Lersch) Shapiro and James E. (Tia Powell) Shapiro, his brothers, Herbert M. Shapiro and Edward R. Shapiro, eight grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. His daughter Jean (Joel) Perwin died in 2015.

A memorial service will be held at Levine’s Chapel, Harvard Street, Brookline on Sunday, September 11th 2016 at 3PM.

In lieu of flowers, those who wish may donate to the Boston University Medical School Lead Scholarship Fund in memory of Leon Shapiro.