Patrick T. Dowling, M.D., M.P.H. is the Kaiser Permanente Endowed Professor of Community Medicine and Chair of the UCLA Department of Family Medicine. A graduate of the Medical College of Ohio and the University of Michigan School of Public Health, he completed his residency training in Family Medicine at Cook County Hospital in Chicago under Jorge Prieto, MD and Michael Stocker, MD. He 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, Brown University in Rhode Island and at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He has served on the National Advisory Council and National Health Service Corps and is currently Vice Chairman of the LA County Public Health Commission. Further, he is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in South- LA, as well as the board of the California Community Foundation.
His professional interests include health policy, the science of health care delivery and the provision of care to underserved and minority communities. 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 among racial and ethnic minorities. Further, his research interests include chronic disease management, cross cultural and bi-national medicine and the integration of substance abuse treatment programs within primary care. He is Co-founder and Associate Director of the UCLA Department of Family Medicine IMG program, an innovative program to prepare bilingual (English-Spanish) International Medical Graduates (IMGs) to become eligible for licensure and residency training in Family Medicine in California. Ever since his days as Medical Director of the United Farm Workers Clinics (UFW) under Cesar Chavez in California’s Coachella and Imperial valleys he has believed that health care is a unique social goal and basic right.
Practice Location
1920 Colorado Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404
Dr. Patrick T. Dowling has served as professor and chairman of the UCLA Department of Family Medicine since November, 1998. A small-town Ohio native, Dr Dowling graduated from Medical College of Ohio and completed a medical internship and family medicine residency program at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He received a Masters Degree in Public Health from the University of Michigan in Health Policy and Health Care Administration.
From 1977 to 1979 Dr. Dowling served as Medical Director of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) union clinic in Coachella California followed by 2 years at the Clinica de Salubridad de Campensino in the Imperial Valley on the Mexican border.
In 1980 he accepted the position of Associate Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at Cook County Hospital. For the past 24 years he has worked as a medical educator and has directed family medicine residency programs at Cook County Hospital, Brown University and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. In each of these settings he worked to improve access by linking residency training directly to community health centers in federally designated underserved communities. Further, he has worked to recruit, train and place underserved minority students, and other committed to the underserved, in shortage areas as a means to address disparities.
Since arriving at UCLA he has moved a portion of the residency training program off the over-doctored Westside campus and placed it in a county clinic in Van Nuys where 70% of the patients lack public and private insurance.
From 1990-93 Dr. Dowling served on the National Advisory Council of the National Health Service Corps. At present he is one of the five Commissioners on the LA County Board of Health and is a Board member of the Drew University of Medicine and Science in South-Central LA. He and his wife Anne Marie are proud parents of four college age students.
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