Rebecca Leff, MD

I am an Emergency Medicine physician and current Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. I completed my Emergency Medicine residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. As a long-standing member of the SAEM Global Emergency Medicine Academy (GEMA), I helped found GEMA’s first Pediatrics Committee, leading initiatives to map the global landscape of pediatric emergency medicine and to develop pediatric-focused emergency care assessment tools for low- and middle-income countries. I currently serve as co-chair of both the GEMA Pediatrics Committee and the Humanitarian Committee and previously served as the Resident Representative to GEMA’s Executive Board. In recognition of these contributions, I was honored with the SAEM GEMA Young Physician Award in 2023.

I am running for a position on the GEMA Executive Board to continue advancing our collective vision of inclusivity, collaboration, and sustainable impact in global emergency care. My goal is to strengthen engagement with colleagues from LMICs, expand mentorship opportunities, and build meaningful partnerships with global organizations. During this particularly challenging period for global health, I hope to help members view GEMA as a community of support—offering access to mentorship, skill development, and strategies to adapt and sustain projects amid evolving or limited funding environments.

My global health work focuses on strengthening pediatric emergency medicine capacity through high-impact educational initiatives. I have had the privilege of teaching PEM skills to trainees across Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and am currently collaborating with the American Academy of Pediatrics to develop the Global Pediatric Emergency Care (GPEC) program. Additionally, I contributed to establishing Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Critical Care (PECC) as a recognized specialty in Ghana and helped launch the country’s first PECC fellowship. My ongoing research centers on sustainable, equitable PEM capacity development in LMICs and improving emergency care for vulnerable populations.