UCSD Profiles

search, discover, network

Aviya L. Levy, MD MS is a pediatric rheumatologist at Rady Children's Hospital. She earned her medical degree at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University in Providence, RI, completed her pediatrics residency at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, NY and completed her fellowship in pediatric rheumatology at Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle, WA. She has a Masters in Health Services from the University of Washington and completed narrative medicine facilitator training through the Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative as well as the Digital Storytelling Online Certificate Program through StoryCenter. Dr. Levy is the founder and co-leader of the Narrative Medicine Workgroup affiliated with Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA), a national organization focused on advancing research within pediatric rheumatology. She has also been elected to serve as the CARRA Cross Cutting Research Committee (CCRC) Vice Chair. She is the founder and co-leader of the Myositis International Health and research Collaborative Alliance (MIHRA) Psychological Impact and Wellbeing group, focused on raising awareness around mental health for patients living with myositis.

Dr. Levy is passionate about narrative medicine as a therapeutic tool to address anxiety, depression and disconnectedness, particularly for patients with chronic illness. She has a particular interest in juvenile dermatomyositis and founded the Myositis Clinic at Rady Children’s Hospital. She has received several grants supporting her work in juvenile myositis as well as in narrative medicine, including funding through Harmony 4 Hope, Cure JM, and the University of Washington and the University of California. She has spearheaded and published narrative medicine-based research initiatives bringing the narrative arts to patients and providers in the pediatric rheumatology realm, as well as published articles in the fields of juvenile dermatomyositis and chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis, among others. Dr. Levy has been honored as a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society and Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society and has been recognized for teaching excellence with residents. She also completed a Sanford Empathy Fellowship and serves as Affiliate Faculty with the Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion.