Katherine A. Flores

Last updated

Katherine A. Flores (born 1953) is a family physician and an Associate Clinical Professor in Family Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, in the United States. [1] [2] [3] [4] She is one of the founding members of the National Hispanic Medical Association. [5] Flores founded and continues to direct a range of programs focused on increasing the number of culturally competent doctors serving the Latinx communities in California's Central Valley, particularly by supporting traditionally underserved student populations to successfully pursue education and medical careers. [1] [2] [3] [4] These educational programs include the California Borders Health Education and Training Center (HETC) program, Partnerships for Health Professions Education (PHPE), and the Hispanic Centers of Excellence (HCOE), the California Health Professions Consortium, and the Latino Center for Medical Education and Research. [6] [1] [2] [3] [4] The Latino Center for Medical Education and Research is the home of Junior Doctors Academy and Doctors Academy, programs that support middle and high school students as they pursue education and careers in medical fields. [7] [1] [2] [3] [4] She received a James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award in 2010. [8]

Contents

Childhood and family life

Flores' family migrated from Mexico to the United States, where they worked as farm laborers. Born in Fresno, California, USA, Flores' mother died when she was just an infant. [3] She was raised by her grandparents, and worked alongside them at agricultural jobs from about age four to age 16. [3] [4] [9] [7]

Experiences from her childhood and early adult years informed Flores' career trajectory. Her grandfather lost his leg to a diabetes-related infection, as a result of the medical professionals who treated him not taking his living situation into account. [4] Seeing how the lack of Latinx medical professionals in the San Juaquine Valley regularly led to misunderstandings that impacted the health of the region's substantial Latinx population, Flores became interested in representation of the Latinx among medical workers. [4] Additionally, after earning admission and full scholarship to Stanford University, Flores found college a struggle. In particular, she missed her family and community. [3] Flores credits support from two classmates with keeping her in school. [4] She also got involved with advocacy for Latinx individuals' and farmworkers' rights, including marching with Cesar Chavez, [10] and began working with Latinx organizations on the state and national level, focusing on increasing the number of medical professionals who are Latinx. These experiences convinced Flores that she could go to medical school and led to her determination that helping other students succeed would also be part of her life's work. [4] [10]

She married a professor of teacher education, Juan Flores. [3] They have two children. [3]

Education

Flores completed her undergraduate degree in Human Biology from Stanford University in 1975 and her medical degree from the University of California, Davis School of Medicine in 1979. [11] [7] After medical school, Flores returned to Fresno for her residency, a fellowship, and eventually entering her own private practice in 1983. [3]

Career

As a partner in a bilingual family medicine practice in Fresno, CA, Flores serves a diverse population. Through her additional leadership of several large institutional medical education programs, as well as seats on advisory committees on the state and national levels, Flores aims to narrow the gap between the large percentage of the population in California's Central Valley that identifies as Latinx, and the very small number of Latinx medical personnel. [6]

One year after joining her private practice, in 1984, Flores took on her Associate Clinical Professor roll at UCSF School of Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine. In 1996, she founded the Latino Center for Medical Education and Research at UCSF, and is still the director there in 2021. From 1993 to 1999 Flores was the assistant dean of the University of California, San Francisco Fresno Medical Education Program. [12]

Beyond her private practice and work at UCSF, Flores has long been active in other organizations that work on recruiting, training, and retaining medical personnel to work with Latinx and other underserved populations. [11] She collaborates with many partners across the Central Valley to recruit and train medical care workers with migrant farmworker backgrounds and from other underrepresented backgrounds. [11] From 1993 to 1999, Flores was the principal investigator and project director at the California Area Health Education Center, an organization that focuses on scaffolding a health professions workforce for serving underserved communities. [12] After attending the White House Health Care Reform Task Force meetings in 1993–1994, Flores was one of the ten Latinx participants who went on to found the National Hispanic Medical Association. [5] She was one of the Association's Leadership Fellows in 1999, [5] and went on to serve on the board of the organization, including serving as secretary and later chairwoman. She also was with the California Health Education and Training Center from 1992 to 2007. [12] With other medical specialists, Flores founded the California Health Professions Consortium in 2006, aiming to diversify the healthcare workforce. [12] In 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown appointed Flores to the California Healthcare Workforce Policy Commission. [13]

Some of the programs Flores has created focus on school success even before college. The Junior and High School Doctors Academies are run through a partnership between California State University, Fresno, and local school districts. It began at Sunnyside High School in 1999, and expanded to Caruthers and Selma high schools in 2007. [7] The program recruits students from low-income families in the Fresno area as early as seventh grade, and supports them through high school and college. With special classes daily, as well as tutoring and internships, these programs focus on increasing students' self-confidence and study skills. [7] [4] In a school district with a reported twenty-five percent graduation rate in the early 2000s, Doctors Academies sustained a one hundred percent graduation rate for students who stuck with the program. [4] [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, San Francisco</span> Public university in San Francisco, California

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It conducts research and teaching in medical and biological sciences.

Osteopathic medicine is a branch of the medical profession in the United States that promotes the practice of science-based medicine, often referred to in this context as allopathic medicine, with a set of philosophy and principles set by its earlier form, osteopathy. Osteopathic physicians (DOs) are graduates of American osteopathic medical colleges and are licensed to practice the full scope of medicine and surgery in all 50 US states; they have historically applied for medical licensure in 87 countries outside of the United States, 85 of which provided them with the full scope of medical and surgical practice. The field is distinct from osteopathic practices offered in nations outside of the U.S., whose practitioners are generally not considered part of core medical staff nor of medicine itself, but rather are alternative medicine practitioners. The other major branch of medicine in the United States is referred to by practitioners of osteopathic medicine as allopathic medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, Irvine Medical Center</span> Hospital in California, United States


The University of California, Irvine Medical Center is a major research hospital located in Orange, California. It is the teaching hospital for the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine.

Allied health professions are health care professions that provide a range of diagnostic, technical, therapeutic, and support services in connection with health care. Their services are allied with and support the work of a number of other professions not considered allied health professions, such as medicine, nursing, dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, and others listed below as "excluded professions".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School</span> Magnet public high school

Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School is a magnet public high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District with a focus on serving students who plan to study in the healthcare field. It is located near the LAC+USC Medical Center, in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western University of Health Sciences</span> Private medical graduate school in California and Oregon

Western University of Health Sciences (WesternU) is a private medical school and health sciences university with its main campus in Pomona, California, with an additional campus in Lebanon, Oregon. With an enrollment of 3,724 students (2022–23), WesternU offers more than twenty academic programs in multiple colleges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA</span> Medical school of UCLA

The University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine also known as the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (DGSOM)—is an accredited medical school located in Los Angeles, California, United States. The school was renamed in 2001 in honor of media mogul David Geffen who donated $200 million in unrestricted funds. Founded in 1951, it is the second medical school in the University of California system, after the UCSF School of Medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunnyside High School (Fresno)</span> Public school

Sunnyside High School is a high school in Fresno, California, USA. It is a part of the Fresno Unified School District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UCLA IMG Program</span>

The UCLA International Medical Graduate (IMG) Program is a non-profit educational program for Hispanic International Medical Graduates who are residing in the US legally. Housed in the Dept of Family Medicine of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles, California the IMG Program was created to train immigrant physicians who could address the linguistic and cultural barriers to care faced by California's largely underserved Hispanic population.

MEDICC is a non-profit organization founded in 1997 that works to enhance cooperation among the US, Cuban and global health communities through its programs.

The UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program (JMP) is a joint degree program in the University of California system between the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the UCSF School of Medicine. Students spend their pre-clerkship years at UC Berkeley engaging in a unique medical curriculum centered around student-led inquiry while simultaneously earning a master's degree (MS) in the Health and Medical Sciences at Berkeley Public Health. After two and a half years, students move across the Bay to UCSF to finish their medical education and receive their medical doctorate (MD).

The Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Program is a federally funded program established in the United States in 1972 "to improve the supply, distribution, retention and quality of primary care and other health practitioners in medically underserved areas." The program is "part of a national effort to improve access to health services through changes in the education and training of health professionals." The program particularly focuses on primary care.

Kevin Grumbach is an American physician, academic and advocate for single-payer health insurance. He is the Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

The Bureau of Health Workforce is a part of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. HRSA programs train health care professionals and place them where they are needed most. Grants support scholarship and loan repayment programs at colleges and universities to meet critical workforce shortages and promote diversity within the health professions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UCSF Library</span>

The UCSF Library is the library of the University of California, San Francisco. It is one of the world's foremost libraries in the health sciences.

Barbara Ross-Lee, D.O. is an American physician, academic, and the first African-American woman to serve as dean of a U.S. medical school; she is also known as the sister of Diana Ross along with being the aunt of actress Tracee Ellis Ross, and singer-songwriters Rhonda Ross Kendrick and Evan Ross. She majored in biology and chemistry at Wayne State University, graduating in 1965. Then, in 1969, she entered Michigan State University's College of Osteopathic Medicine. Ross-Lee then went on to open her own private family practice, teach as a professor, and hold other positions within the medical community. In 1993, she was elected as the first woman dean of a medical school, at Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. She has earned several awards and honors for her work and accomplishments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa Grubbs</span> Nephrologist

Vanessa Grubbs is a nephrologist and a writer based in Oakland, California. She is an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She works at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sora Park Tanjasiri</span> Public health researcher

Sora Park Tanjasiri is a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of California, Irvine, and Associate Director for Cancer Health Disparities and Community Engagement at the UCI Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research focuses on community health in diverse populations, in particular Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans.

Jacqueline Nwando Olayiwola is an American family physician, public health professional, author, professor, and women's empowerment leader. She is the Senior Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer of Humana and a chair and Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Prior to her appointment at OSU, she served as the inaugural Chief Clinical Transformation Officer for RubiconMD, an eConsult platform that improves primary care access to specialty care for underserved patients. Olayiwola is dedicated to serving marginalized patient populations and addressing the social determinants through community and technology-based infrastructures of healthcare reform. She has published articles on the use of eConsults and telehealth to provide underserved patients with primary care treatments so that they have a low cost and efficient means of reaching specialized care. Olayiwola has founded numerous non-profits and healthcare start-ups such as GIRLTALK Inc, Inspire Health Solutions LLC, and the Minority Women Professionals are MVPs Program. She has been recognized at the national and international level for her work and efforts to educate, advocate and provide healthcare to those in need. She was named Woman of the Year by the American Telemedicine Association in 2019, and received the Public Health Innovator Award from Harvard School of Public Health in 2019, as well as being named one of America's Top Family Doctors from 2007 to 2008 by the Consumers Research Council of America.

Rita Fran Redberg is an American cardiologist and the editor-in-chief of JAMA Internal Medicine.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Morales, Natalie (2009). "Making a Difference, NBC Nightly News". NBC. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Rice, Cheryl A. (January 2011). "Latinas in Medicine: Needed, Sought, Welcome". www.hispanicoutlook.com. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Dr. Katherine A. Flores". National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "2010 Award Recipient Dr. Katherine Flores". irvineawards.org. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
  5. 1 2 3 Rios, Elena (2018). "National Hispanic Medical Association: 20" (PDF). National Hispanic Medical Association.
  6. 1 2 Corrales, Nancy. "7 NEED TO KNOW: Latina Doctors Breaking Barriers In Medicine". Dress A Med. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "In Fresno, High School Program Aims at Lack of Provider Diversity". KQED. 13 June 2014. Retrieved 2021-07-29.
  8. ↑ Syed, Razi (12 February 2016). "Pete Weber, Fresno Bridge Academy win $200,000 Irvine award". Fresno Bee. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  9. ↑ "Katherine A. Flores". The California Endowment. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
  10. 1 2 American Library Association (2011-12-19). "Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians". Tools, Publications & Resources. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
  11. 1 2 3 4 "Katherine Flores, MD - The James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards". irvineawards.org. Archived from the original on 2021-07-28. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
  12. 1 2 3 4 "Governor Brown Announces Appointments | Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr". www.ca.gov. Retrieved 2021-08-11.
  13. ↑ Simmons, Christopher (2013-11-26). "Calif. Gov. Brown Announces Appointments for Nov. 25, 2013 including to California Healthcare Workforce Policy Commission". California Newswire (Press release). Retrieved 2021-07-29.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.