Leah Kern, MD, MPH, FAAP

Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics

Whether in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia or San Diego, Dr. Leah Kern loves taking care of children. She is committed to providing excellent care to her patients in San Diego, and to improving the quality of pediatric care for children globally.

Prior to attending medical school, Dr. Kern served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea, West Africa. She worked closely with the village health center to promote prenatal care and child vaccinations and to educate families about nutrition and disease prevention. In Guinea, she witnessed the incredible obstacles that parents surmount in order to obtain health care for their children such as carrying a sick child many miles along mountainous trails at any hour of the day to reach the health center.

She graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed a general pediatric residency at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. She also obtained a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Immediately after completing pediatric residency training, Dr. Kern worked as a Pediatric AIDS Corps physician for the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative in Burkina Faso, West Africa for two years. Working with local pediatricians and the Burkina Faso Ministry of Health, she and her colleagues established a pediatric HIV clinic in Bobo-Dioulasso and provided care to children infected with HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Kern now works as a general pediatrician at the UCSD Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine clinic and is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at UCSD. She is dedicated to supporting parents and other family members and caregivers in their efforts to provide a safe and healthy upbringing for their children. She works as a pediatric technical advisor for UCSD-Ethiopia, a UCSD program that provides technical assistance for HIV prevention, care and treatment to the Uniformed Services of Ethiopia. She also is interested is providing education and mentoring to medical students and residents interested in global child health and the care of children in low resources countries.