[1] Shryock studied at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy and then at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating there with a bachelor's degree in 1917 and a PhD in American history in 1924.
During World War I he served as a private in the United States Army Ambulance Service.
During World War II he served as a lieutenant commander in the United States Coast Guard.
[3] The focus of Shryock's research was on the investigation of the influence of social and scientific factors on the development of medicine.
For example, in 2008, the student Stephen E. Mawdsley of the University of Alberta received the medal for his article entitled Polio and Prejudice: Charles Hudson Bynum and the Racial Politics of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, 1944-1954.