Katherine Flores, MD
Katherine Flores was born into an immigrant Mexican family in Fresno, California, and worked as a migrant farmworker for the first 16 years of her life. She received her undergraduate degree at Stanford University, her medical degree from the University of California, Davis and completed her family residency training at the UC San Francisco Fresno program. Dr. Flores is Associate Clinical Professor in Family Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine and the Director of the UCSF Fresno Latino Center for Medical Education and Research (LaCMER). The overall mission of LaCMER is to work with disadvantaged students and help prepare them to become healthcare professionals who will ultimately return to the Central Valley to provide culturally competent healthcare to the medically underserved. Through her work in developing health professions pathway programs for disadvantaged students, “The Doctor’s Academy”, Dr. Flores and others jointly formed the California Health Professions Consortium in 2006 to explore the development of a statewide strategy to address increasing the diversity of the healthcare workforce. The Consortium has grown to include members from academic institutions (faculty and administrators from universities and health professions schools), K-12 educators, direct service providers (hospitals, clinics, health plans, nurses, and physicians), health policy advocates, and others who have similar interests. Dr. Flores is Past Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Hispanic Medical Association, serves on many national and statewide committees and boards, and is Board Certified through the American Board of Family Practice.