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. She is one of the founding members of the National Hispanic Medical Association. 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. 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. 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. She received a James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award in 2010.
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. She was raised by her grandparents, and worked alongside them at agricultural jobs from about age four to age 16.
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. 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. Additionally, after earning admission and full scholarship to Stanford University, Flores found college a struggle. In particular, she missed her family and community. Flores credits support from two classmates with keeping her in school. She also got involved with advocacy for Latinx individuals' and farmworkers' rights, including marching with Cesar Chavez, 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.
She married a professor of teacher education, Juan Flores. They have two children.
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. After medical school, Flores returned to Fresno for her residency, a fellowship, and eventually entering her own private practice in 1983.
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.
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.