WASHINGTON — President Obama announced Monday that he would nominate Dr. Regina Benjamin, a family physician who founded a health clinic in a small, shrimp-farming town in Alabama, to be surgeon general.
Benjamin in 1995 became the first black woman and the youngest doctor elected to the board of the American Medical Association. In 2008, she received a MacArthur Fellowship "genius" grant for her efforts to treat patients in the Gulf Coast region regardless of their ability to pay.
Benjamin, 52, founded a rural health clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala., a Gulf Coast village of about 2,500. Many of the residents lack health insurance, and about a third are immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Alphonsine Lyons, director of medical operations at Mostellar Medical Center in Alabama, said many of the patients at Benjamin's clinic, unable to pay for their treatment, like to show their appreciation by bringing the doctors "delicious lunches" — cakes, smoked fish and shrimp.
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Since starting the clinic in 1990, Benjamin has worked to rebuild it three times: in 1998, after it was devastated by Hurricane Georges; in 2005, following Hurricane Katrina; and after an early-morning fire in January, 2006.
During the rebuilding, she made house calls to patients in her pickup truck, according to news accounts. She mortgaged her house and maxed out her credit cards in order to rebuild the clinic the second time, Obama said in introducing her.
At the Rose Garden ceremony, Obama praised Benjamin for opening the Alabama clinic, "even though she could have left the state to make more money as a specialist or a doctor in a wealthier community."
Benjamin called the nomination "a physician's dream."
If confirmed by the Senate for the four-year term, she will be America's leading official on issues of public health.
AGE-YEAR OF BIRTH-LOCATION: 52, 1956, Mobile, Ala.
EXPERIENCE: Founder and chief executive, Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic, Bayou La Batre, Ala., 1990-present; chair, Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States, 2008-2009; president, Medical Association of the State of Alabama, 2002-2003; trustee, American Medical Association, 1995-1998; diplomate, American Board of Family Practice; fellow, American Academy of Family Physicians.
EDUCATION: M.B.A., Tulane University, New Orleans, 1991; residency in family medicine, Medical Center of Central Georgia, Macon, Ga., 1984-1987; M.D., University of Alabama, Birmingham, 1984; B.S., chemistry, Xavier University, New Orleans, 1979.
QUOTE: "I can be a voice in the movement to improve our nation's health care and our nation's health. I want to be sure that no one falls through the cracks as we improve our health- care system."
The Associated Press
profile of Dr. regina benjamin
