Dr. Glenn Flores Honored for Career Devoted to Children’s Health
AcademyHealth bestowed the Reinhardt Distinguished Career Award on the Miller School George E. Batchelor Endowed Chair in Child Health.
AcademyHealth awarded Glenn Flores, M.D., chair of the Department of Pediatrics and senior associate dean of child health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, its highest honor, the Reinhardt Distinguished Career Award.
Named after Professor Uwe Reinhardt, the award recognizes leaders who have made a significant impact on health care outcomes through research, advocacy and leadership. AcademyHealth presents the award to scientists who “have impacted the field through advancement of science and methods, leadership, mentorship, scholarship and teaching, and/or the application of health services and policy evidence to improve health and health care.”
Dr. Flores, also director of the Batchelor Children’s Research Institute and a professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and behavioral health sciences and public health sciences at the Miller School, is the first underrepresented minority recipient in the 39-year history of the award. He is also the first chair of pediatrics to receive the award.
“It’s a capstone in my career, because it’s the most prestigious award from AcademyHealth,” Dr. Flores said. “I’ve been a health services researcher since the very beginning of my career. Being honored like this is so phenomenal.”
Zoology’s Loss, Pediatrics’ Gain
And to think, he was almost a zoologist.
Prior to medical school and his illustrious career as a physician, Dr. Flores was an undergraduate student looking for new species of lizards in the Dominican Republic. While he discovered a few, the lives of the D.R. children were more striking.
“I was shocked to see the depth of poverty,” he said. “A lot of kids didn’t have clothing and some didn’t have shelter. I got to thinking maybe I’d be better off using my scientific skills to focus on kids instead of frogs and snakes.”
That decision has improved the health of children the world over and carved inroads for underrepresented minority physicians.
Relentless Pursuit of Health Equity
The work that earned Dr. Flores the Reinhardt award starts at the office. Eighteen division chiefs in the Miller School’s Department of Pediatrics are underrepresented minorities, 39% women and 17% LGBTQIA+. Forty-eight percent of the department’s faculty are underrepresented minorities and 72% women.
Indeed, Dr. Flores career is characterized by a relentless pursuit of health equity in pediatrics. Earlier this year, he received the David G. Nichols Health Equity Award from the American Pediatric Society, given to pediatricians who demonstrate excellence in advancing child and adolescent health, well-being and equity through quality improvement, advocacy, practice or research.
We still see poverty in the United States. We have about 4 million uninsured kids, and if you’re a child of color, you’re more likely to be uninsured. We still have a lot of work to do.
—Dr. Glenn Flores
The recipient of the David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health bestowed by the American Public Health Association, Dr. Flores has been an invited expert and national advisory committee member for Sesame Workshop and a panelist on the JAMA Network Open listening session on addressing structural racism in health care.
Dr. Flores has worked to bring pediatric primary care to underserved communities in disparate locations across the country, including the Rosebud Indian Health Service Unit in South Dakota, Children’s Medical Center in Dallas and the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. He founded the Pediatric Latino Clinic at Boston Medical Center in his first year as an assistant professor.
Health Insurance for All Kids
An indefatigable proponent of legislative solutions to health care inequities, Dr. Flores was instrumental in securing federal legislation that has provided $120 million in funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for parent mentors of uninsured children and parent-mentor programs in 11 states and the Cherokee Nation. He’s spoken at the invitation of the U.S. Congress on ways to provide adequate health care coverage for all children.
“Getting kids health insurance coverage not only improves their outcomes,” Dr. Flores said, “but it will save our nation billions, based on our projections. I think that would be the biggest single step we could take.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health turned to Dr. Flores for a commissioned review of the efficacy of medical interpreter services. The study, published in Medical Care Research and Review, has been cited more than 1,600 times, making it the most-cited article about language barriers in health care.
Dr. Flores founded and serves as director of Research in Academic Initiative on Diversity (RAPID), now in its 12th year of funding from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The program promotes the careers of underrepresented minority early investigators through mentorship pairings and research funding.
He’ll be intricately involved in the Miller School’s future pediatric health services research institute, which will be another crucial step on the path to his ultimate objective.
“My goal is to continue to promote equity in pediatrics,” Dr. Flores said. “We still see poverty in the United States. We have about 4 million uninsured kids, and if you’re a child of color, you’re more likely to be uninsured. We still have a lot of work to do.”
Tags: Batchelor Children's Research Institute, Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Glenn Flores, pediatrics