Program Leadership

Michelle Bholat is Professor and Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She earned her medical degree from the University of California, Irvine College of Medicine, completed Family Medicine residency training at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and earned her Master of Public Health in Health Policy and Management from the UCLA School of Public Health. Dr. Bholat has served as Associate Residency Program Director for the Harbor-UCLA Department of Family Medicine; Medical Director of the Wilmington Family Health Center in Los Angeles; Chair of UCLA Health System Ambulatory Care Services; and Director of Clinical Operations for the UCLA Department of Family Medicine.

Dr. Bholat is committed to innovation in healthcare delivery systems and education. She has developed and integrated new models of care within primary care in areas such as addiction and behavioral medicine, childhood and adolescent preventive medicine, chronic disease management, ER diversion to primary care and subspecialty triage, outpatient pain and palliative medicine. She served as a field surveyor for the Join Commission Bureau of Primary Health care, and is Vice Chair of the Los Angeles County Public Health Commission. She is a former fellow of the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA) and active member of the NHMA California chapter.

In 2014, Dr. Bholat was elected to the Board of the California Beach Cities Health District serving the communities of Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, and Redondo Beach, California. In 2015, she was appointed to the Medical Board of California by Governor Edmund G. Brown; in 2018 she was reappointed to the Medical Board by Governor Brown, and in July of that same year she was elected as Secretary of the Medical Board.

Patrick Dowling is the Kaiser Permanente Professor of Community Medicine and Executive Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. A graduate of the Medical College of Ohio and the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Dr. Dowling completed his residency training in Family Medicine at Cook County Hospital, Chicago, and is board certified in Family Medicine, Preventive Medicine and Public Health.

Prior to joining UCLA as the first permanent Chair of Family Medicine in 1998, Dr. Dowling directed Family Medicine Residency training programs at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Brown University and at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He has served on the National Advisory Council of the National Health Service Corps, as a Commissioner of Public Health for Los Angeles County, and is presently a member of the Board of the Drew University of Medicine and Science.

A common thread in his career has been the linkage of graduate medical education to underserved communities as a means to improve access and reduce health outcomes disparities. His belief that health care is a unique social good and a human right was crystallized during his service as Medical Director of the United Farm Workers of America Clinics (UFW) under Cesar Chavez in California’s Coachella and Imperial Valleys during the 1970s.