Page 10 - Emory TFD Society BHM '21

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, Dr. Juvonda Hodge, also trained under the departmental leadership of Leffall with Dr. Greene. She outlines a story that exemplifies the man Dr. Leffall was. As an ambitious third year medical student, planning to attend a SNMA conference being held in D.C., she wanted to tour Howard’s Surgery Department while in town from New Jersey. To do so she called the Department directly. Serendipitously, the secretary accidentally put her through to Leffall’s direct line. “I was shocked when I realized who it was, but he was very gracious with his time” she states. “After a brief conversation I was instructed to be at his office early on a Friday morning. He then personally took time out of his schedule to give me a very detailed tour”.
This helped lay the foundation for her to matriculate into the training program at Howard. “Details and discipline” she added. “He would remember almost everything about everyone, never forgetting a name. Because of all his academic responsibilities he would have 6 am Saturday morning clinic after 5 am rounds. Out of respect, even his clinic patients would show up early.”
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. LaSalle D. Leffall Jr was a mild-mannered giant who became a luminary of the surgical world.
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Black History Month 2021 I Surgeon Highlight