[3] McDougall elected not to pursue a career in chemistry, accepting, instead, a position as a grade 3 clerk in the Department of External Affairs.
[3] McDougall rose through the ranks of the department, becoming a grade 1 foreign service officer in 1952.
[3] In 1958 and 1959 McDougall represented Canada on the trilateral International Control Commission for Vietnam (the other members being India and Poland).
[3] In writing her report, McDougall traveled around the world and interviewed sixty percent of the Canadian foreign service and their spouses.
[3] In 1987, she married Paul Mayer, a retired Lieutenant Colonel whom she had met in Vietnam three decades earlier.