Heather Bennett Schickedanz, MD (she/her/ella) is a family physician-geriatrician serving LA County Department of Health Services since 2015. Dr. Schickedanz is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and has served as Chair of the Harbor-UCLA Department of Family Medicine since 2018. Previously, she was the Primary Care Director at Olive View-UCLA from 2015-2018, and faculty in the UCLA Health Division of Geriatrics from 2014-2015. Her passion is for improving the teaching, scholarship and quality of care that occur in safety-net settings serving diverse communities. Dr. Schickedanz provides primary care, geriatrics consultation, home visits, and inpatient and outpatient supervision of trainees at Harbor-UCLA. Her research interests include culturally-responsive care of older adults, including those living with dementia and their caregivers, and advance care planning. She is PI of the CA-DPH Alzheimer's Disease Program (2024-2028) and serves as Chair of the Public-Academic-Community partnership organization, Los Angeles Alliance of Community Health and Aging (LAACHA). 

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A California native, she earned her B.A. at UC Berkeley, completed studies at Johns Hopkins University and the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and earned her MD at the University of California, San Francisco. There, she completed residency in Family and Community Medicine, Primary Care Health Policy Fellowship, and Geriatric Medicine Fellowship. 

Dr. Schickedanz enjoys dancing, swimming, seeing live performances, and writing poetry. Her greatest joy is being anywhere out in nature with her husband and two kids.