Roneet Lev, MD FACEP was the first Chief Medical Officer of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, ONDCP, 2018-2020. She brought refreshing frontline medical experience to national health policy. She is a nationally acclaimed medical expert and speaker who continues to treat patients in the emergency department and hosts a podcast titled High Truths on Drugs and Addiction. As a mother of four she relates to families who struggle. Lev uses data to drive change and is frequently quoted in print and television media. Lev is dually board certified in emergency and addiction medicine, bringing over 25 years of experience treating the frontline cases of addiction. She came to the White House as chief of the emergency department at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. In 2012, she established and chaired the San Diego Prescription Drug Abuse Medical Task Force, the first of its kind in California that integrated physicians of various specialties along with hospitals, law enforcement, hospital administration, treatment programs and public health for the purpose of decreasing deaths and mortality from prescription drugs. Lev’s medical publications known as the “Death Diaries” studied the details of prescription patterns of people who died from accidental medication drug overdoses, giving insight to the causes of overdose and directing prevention efforts.
Lev graduated from the University of Texas Medical School in San Antonio and completed her emergency medicine residency training at the University of California San Diego. Dr. Lev served as President of the California Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians in 2000. She is Founder and President of IEPC, Independent Emergency Physicians Consortium, an organization providing collaboration to independent emergency departments in California. Her program on Safe Prescribing in the emergency department won the 2014 National Association of Counties award. The California US Attorney's office nominated her for the White House Champion of Change Award. Lev is an energetic leader with a passion to assist communities in preventing and treating addiction. She continues to practice medicine on the front lines and consults on clinical medicine and health policy.