Page 9 - Lefall BHM

8
we provide to patients. I learned early on that meaningful conversations require a good listening ear for the spoken and unspoken concerns of the patient. “
Coincidentally, Dr. Greene’s own father, Dr. William Ricketts, and Dr. Leffall were medical school classmates and friends (pictured previously.
Emory Assistant Professor of Surgery, Javonda Hodge, MD, FACS also trained under the departmental leadership of Leffall with Dr. Greene and recounts her time under his study fondly.
Leffall was a modest man who deferred his success to the great surgical mentors that preceded him. Men such as Dr. W. Montague Cobb, whose prudence he coveted, Charles Drew, whose expectation of a standard of excellence transformed black surgical culture, and Drs. Burke Syphax and Jack White, who personified the persistence and assuredness that Leffall one day embodied. Ultimately, to three generations of surgeons, physicians, and patients, he was the personification of courage. He will be remembered as a leader always willing to dedicate himself to education, the discipline of surgery and the eradication of racial healthcare disparities. This all in the face of nearly insurmountable odds. Dr. LeSalle D. Leffall Jr in his passing will be forever remembered as a mild- mannered giant who became a luminary of the surgical world.
Black History Month 2021 I Surgeon Highlight