Dr. Roneet Lev is a full-time emergency physician, board certified in addiction medicine, who practices on the front lines at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. She hosts the podcast, High Truths on Drugs and Addiction. Lev served as the first Chief Medical Officer of the White House Office of National Drug Control (2018 - 2020) to end the prescription opioid epidemic. In October 2012, she established the San Diego and Imperial County Prescription Drug Abuse Medical Task Force, creating an award-winning program on safe prescribing that coordinated recommendations across multiple medical specialties. Through the Task Force, she published the Death Diaries, research that evaluated medication deaths compared to prescriptions.
Dr. Lev now chairs San Diego CReDO, Community Response to Drug Overdose, a committee that brings together public health, public safety, and prevention. Through this committee, she brought the concept of contact tracing for overdoses. Lev authored SB 864, Tyler's law, that promoted the 75-cent fentanyl reagent test. Her vision is to have a response to fentanyl and drugs as strong as we have for coronavirus and infectious disease.
Lev served as President of the California Chapter of ACEP from 2000-2001. She is a founder of ACEP's Young Physician Section and organized the College's very first EMRA job fair. She is Founder and Executive Director of IEPC, Independent Emergency Physicians Consortium, an organization providing collaboration and services to over 30 independent emergency departments in California.
Lev graduated from the University of Texas Medical School in San Antonio, and emergency medicine residency at the University of California in San Diego. She loves her emergency department, that she calls the canary in the coal mine for society's problem. She also loves being a grandmother and is mother to four children that grew up through various ACEP events. Dr. Lev is very proud of her career-long association with ACEP, and attributes much of her success to being part of the ACEP family.
About This Award
The Innovation & Excellence in Behavioral Health & Addiction Medicine Award recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution in advancing the emergency department care of patients with behavioral health and substance use disorder.
