Impact Of A Scholarship: Dr. Jaime Flores

Sports was the way out for a young Jaime Flores. He loved playing anything with a ball and hoped it would get him out of the rough neighborhood that he and his immediate family, the first generation of his family to live in the continental United States after migrating from Puerto Rico, lived in.

“There were a lot of drugs in the neighborhood that was filled with young kids,” Flores said. “I had my own cousins doing drugs at a very young age, and I even experimented at that age too. I never liked how it felt because it affected how I performed in sports.”

Flores became part of a recreation center to escape the harsh life of his neighborhood, playing any sport they offered, from wiffle ball to football, and competing to win in every event, whether the World Series or the Super Bowl. 

He drew a natural liking to football, playing pickup ball with older kids in the Upper Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore. Eventually, he attended Baltimore Polytechnic Institute for high school, where he drew the attention from college scouts. Flores didn’t have much help during the recruiting process, with no mentors and parents who spoke little English, and playing football on a scholarship was his way to a better life.

“I wouldn’t have gone to college without a scholarship,” Flores said. “My dad made $15,000 for a family of four. There was no way I was going to college, so I was looking for scholarships so I could go to college for free.”

Flores got that scholarship he needed from the University of Maryland to play football, suiting up for the Terrapins from 1989-1994. And not only did Flores make the most out of his career on the gridiron, but he made the most of the scholarship presented to him, going on a pre-med track while living out the intense schedule of a college student-athlete.

Nearly 30 years after playing his final down of football in a Maryland uniform, Flores continues to make the most of the education he received in College Park. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he went on to the University of Maryland Medical School, where he eventually earned a doctorate. Now, Flores stands as one of the top plastic surgeons in the country, living and working in Miami, who always remembers to help people who are living in similar circumstances to what he experienced as a child.

“When I got the offer, it was like ‘Don’t squander this. Someone’s paying for you to go to college,’” Flores said. “If they’re paying for you to go to school, you gotta give something back to them. I had the academic grades to go to school, but who knows what I would’ve needed to go to go to school, so I was blessed to have a scholarship from the University of Maryland.”

Once Flores began his high school career at Poly, he had scholarship aspirations on his mind. In his sophomore year, he started reaching out to schools to try and earn an offer from anywhere he could, even going as far as showing up at the house of a representative for the US Naval Academy at Fells Point unannounced his sophomore year in hopes of getting a scholarship.

In his junior year, Flores received offers to play linebacker at several schools up and down the east coast, but found Maryland to be the best option for him for many reasons. After growing up in an area that was filled with distractions to pull him away from being a top-notch student and football player, Flores liked that College Park offered an escape from that life while still remaining close to his family in Baltimore.

“There’s a lot of schools and a lot of communities that had a lot of partying and drugs, and that wasn’t what I was looking for,” Flores said. “I was looking for a good education because you never know what's going to happen, and I wanted to play D-I football. Those were my two goals.”

Along with the environment of College Park that aided his growth as a student, the camaraderie of the team played a deciding factor as well. A great deal of turmoil had been brewing during Flores’ recruiting process in the mid-late 1980s, with the death of Len Bias and the resignation of football head coach Bobby Ross looming over the athletic department.

When Flores visited Maryland, he witnessed players who had stuck around after Joe Krivak took over the head coach position and how they had grown stronger in the face of adversity. After facing difficulties growing up, Flores knew that he had found the right group of guys who had the same will and perseverance he had developed.

“To this day, I remember that camaraderie that I saw amongst the football players was by far better than any other school,” Flores said. “There were juniors and seniors that were with Len Bias at the time of his passing and there were football players who were Bobby Ross's recruits. So they went through all this turmoil and they were a tight, great group of guys. And that's what told me this is where I want to be. It wasn't where people were out for themselves or individualized. It was a true brotherhood.”

In addition to the ideal team culture, Maryland presented a great academic option for Flores to pursue kinesiology on a pre-med track. When professors learned about his intent to tackle a tough career path, they backed Flores and ensured that he was able to pursue both of his dreams.

“Academically, I think people were impressed after a year that I was a football player going to school and getting good grades,” Flores said. “When the teachers started seeing that, they wanted to help me as much as they could. I don’t think I could have done it all if I had not had that type of support.”

Playing college football and the rigors that come along with being a Division I athlete helped Flores prepare for his future as a medical school student and a plastic surgeon. As a high school football player at Poly, he learned what it took to succeed not just under the Friday night lights, but also in the classroom and in the locker room.

“You have to be disciplined in what you do to succeed, you have to be disciplined to perform at a high level, you have to be disciplined to lead, you have to be disciplined to do your schoolwork,” Flores said. “We had to do those things because being a leader is not just being a leader on the field as off the field as well. I wasn't a leader because I was loud at all. I was just like, ‘I'll be the first one to do XYZ.’ I'll be the first one to start to get these grades and I'll be the first one to coordinate a study.”

The mindset Flores developed as a well-rounded student-athlete paid dividends. After redshirting his first year with the Terps in 1989, Flores worked his way up the depth chart over the next four seasons. He began as a special teams player in his first two seasons before getting more reps at his regular position as a linebacker. 

Midway through his junior season, Flores took over the starting role at linebacker and was the full-time starter for his senior season in 1993.

Off the field, Flores received chances to learn about his post-football passion of working in the medical field as a surgeon. He found the opportunity to shadow an orthopedic surgeon in a summer during college, and learned about how he wanted to approach the profession once he reached that level.

“On Saturdays, he went to DC and gave four hours of his time for free to a clinic in an underserved area,” Flores said. “He didn’t have to do it, but he didn’t charge a dime, and that just hit home for me. The fact that someone could love another person to give up their time and dedication without a reward in return sold me on medicine.”

As Flores’ playing career drew to a close for the Terps, he had another life-changing experience that further solidified his aspirations to become a surgeon. After wrapping up the 1993 season, Flores took a medical mission to Ecuador to help out with surgeries for cleft lips and palate surgeries.

“I fell in love with this transformation where you could take a deformity and fix it right away,” Flores said. “They’re completely healed for the rest of their life.”

After receiving acceptance into medical school, Flores applied for the ENT residency and rotated through all of the surgical specialties offered. When he spent time with the chief of plastic surgery at Johns Hopkins, he learned that in the United States, the cleft lip and palate surgeries were usually handled by plastic surgeons.

Flores finished up his ENT program and was earmarked for a plastic surgeon position in 2003, about five years after finishing up his time in medical school. He developed a strong passion for all types of plastic surgery

“I just love helping someone from head to toe,” Flores said. “And as a plastic surgeon, you get to know a little bit about all of the parts of specialties."

In total, it took Flores 14 years, between 1989 and 2003, to finally reach the point of getting to the end goal of having a surgeon position. The experience Flores took away from being a Division I athlete, and the patience it took to reach a starting role with the Maryland football team helped prepare him for the lengthy journey toward reaching his surgeon dreams.

“Sports at a Division I will prepare you for life,” Flores said. “No matter what it is, you are prepared for the ups and downs, you’re prepared for success and for challenges.”

Flores compared the experience of being in med school and going through the residency process to the grueling preseason football workouts, needing determination and courage to not give up in either of those situations.

“Med school and residency is hard, but I’ve been through hard,” Flores said. “I’ve been through two-a-day and three-a-day practices in August on the Maryland turf. You’re hungry and you're sore, so I’ve been battle tested. Nothing that’s hard in medicine is harder than what you work through physically and mentally on the football field.”

Another lesson Flores took away from his time on scholarship at Maryland is that once you find something you love to do, sticking with that passion will drive you a long way.

“Find something that you love to do, and put the same passion that you had that got you to a Division I scholarship to play into your profession,” Flores said. “Sports is not forever physically, but it’s forever mentally. Once you have your love in whatever you try to do, if you bring that passion from sports into it, you will succeed.”

Nearly 30 years after finishing up his college playing career, Flores feels like he doesn’t work a day in his job as a plastic surgeon. He founded his own practice, Flores Plastic Surgery, where he performs over 650 surgeries and serves as an assistant professor at Florida International University. 

In addition to his work, Flores remains committed to serving the underprivileged around the world through his foundation, The Healing Hands Foundation, which has over 200 volunteers and travels the world to perform surgeries for children with complex congenital malformations and teach local professionals how to improve their services.

Flores also operates another foundation called the Pink Petals Foundation, which is a non-profit which assists women with breast cancer who are in need of breast reconstruction surgeries but don’t have the means to afford it.

In addition to his work, Flores loves to cook, stay active by working out and playing recreational sports and spend time with his daughter, Aria.

“I’m in this peaceful state right now, but it took a lot of years,” Flores said. “It was almost like a Rubik’s Cube turning until you got the colors all correct. But now I’m at peace where I have a great schedule, I don’t work too late and I can go to my daughter’s swim and volleyball events.”

That peaceful state is the result of a determination and toughness developed on the football fields in College Park. Through the sacrifices made during his time at Maryland and through the help of those who dedicated their money to paying for his scholarship, he has achieved every dream he set out to do as a kid growing up in Baltimore.

“I was one of those people like if you have a scholarship. I'm gonna give you 150% to be the best I can on the field and medicine,” Flores said. “It's not hard to go back and know it can be done. I wish more people realized that it can be done. But it takes sacrifice on both ends. It takes sacrifice not to take as many classes during the season. I never went home on the weekend because I was in summer session. But looking back now, I know all of those sacrifices I made playing football and pursuing my degree were worth it.”