Dr. Victoria Flores

Q.  Who is Dr. Flores?

A.  Dr. Victoria Nicole Flores, MD, is a graduate of the USC Keck School of Medicine, class of 2016. She trained in a categorical residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Kern County Hospital and did a Chief year at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. She realized early on in training that she was being formed into a robot for the current system which is not robust enough to give women the birth experience that they often imagined having in their fantasies of birth in their early years. The hospital process is overwhelming and the demands on doctors of OB are so many that to give one's all to each and every woman is just so difficult to emotionally sustain for a lifetime for doctors and nurses of OB. There are not enough OB doctors. But women are now asking for midwife support during birth if they are healthy and normal, or not far from it. Dr. Flores wishes she could have been a community midwife, but yet, her journey in OB Training has given her the unique experience to help lay a foundation for developing skills in vaginal breech birth and vaginal twin birth. When the ratio is 1:1 for number of skilled providers to number of women in labor, then the risks of birth are small. Every person wishes they could have the undivided attention of an attending doctor, and in Dr. Flores' home birth model of practice, she can give you her all. 

Q. What is her belief regarding home birth?

A.  She is not your typical OB GYN. Most OBs are worried about being sued, fired, or upsetting senior staff or nurses, because running a business in order to do things your own way is very hard and not taught in the training of a physician. Dr. Flores does not care about pleasing the powers that be, because what is most important to all births is not money, is not an institution’s power, is not a policy which is in place to merely comfort the fears and emotions of physician peers and nurses. What is most important to birth is the mother, her child, and her happiness with the outcomes. These values are individual, and Dr. Flores welcomes informed decision making along the entire path so that the mother-child-family unit is satisfied beyond just having a "live healthy baby", but also satisfied with a healthy and vibrant maternal mental state and empowered family structure. 

Q. How can she know she is doing this safely?

A. Her outcomes are great. She has gone into a private practice model which gives her the power to decide her boundaries and capabilities, and with the smiles of celebrations of mothers and their families after their deliveries, this is the measure that tells her that she is good at what she does. The art of spatial awareness, time awareness, and fetal physical exam, all rely on cognitive skills that are often gifts more than acquired or learned skills. Dr. Flores knows she has this gift and so where the current medical system does not trust OBs to deliver intimidating births, Dr. Flores is not intimidated, but relies on her education and experience to work through what the medical system has said is too-hard to get right. This is just not true, or maybe it is when there are so many patients per each doctor during a hospital shift. 

Q. Why is Dr. Flores not affiliated with a hospital?

A. One thing she hates dealing with is admin-work and social drama, which has become so much of a practicing doctor's work nowadays. Having stepped away from insurance models and hospital policy models of care, Dr. Flores is free to do what is best for her clients/patients, without disruption. You will hear many doctors, secretaries, and patients remark on how happy and kind Dr. Flores is when compared to the average stereotypical OB/GYN.  Dr. Flores can be this joyous because she is doing what her heart has been called to do.  She practices in a midwife-model, but brings advanced obstetrical skills to the birthing space. She proudly claims that she serves women as an independent practitioner, who is not intending to seek Board Certification in OB/GYN. Conformity is not what women need for their particular births, individual consideration and someone who believes in their body is what a woman needs. And she has unique skills not held by most board-certified OBs, thus not enticing her to want to affiliate with a group that is trying to squash out breech providers.  

Dr. Flores hopes to help women deliver their babies in whichever way they choose, and knows that momma's will absolutely choose what is best for them when given complete information. Dr. Flores supports her clients with experiential knowledge and advice, which can be from doctors, midwives, grandmas, or doulas. The message she preaches is: hold space for informed decision making. 

She has independently educated herself in vaginal breech birth with skilled practitioners and through the program of Breech Without Borders. She debriefs her vaginal breech births and those of others with other skills practitioners, and thus has become thoroughly knowledgeable and capable of helping women to deliver vaginal breech babies and twins. She is also skilled in the delivery of breech extraction for an aftercoming twin, which a skill beyond vaginal breech birth, which she has mastered. The only ones doing this in the hospital are MFM trained OBs which are rare and absolutely not as experienced nowadays as this is a rare delivery on the scale of the current hospital birth model. Because twins are a specialty of hers, she has more encounters with this type of birth if needed. She is currently collaborating with the practice of Dr. Stuart Fischbein as needed and helps local midwives with community births. Services she has provided in the community include perineal laceration repair, vacuum assisted vaginal delivery, manual extraction for retained placenta, and attending vaginal deliveries for women over 42 weeks gestational age with healthy pregnancies that do not desire hospital induction of labor. She hopes to provide these unique options to women as long as she can.