Alabama doctor with record of service to rural poor nominated as Surgeon General

President Obama announced his choice today for the nation's new surgeon general -- a trailblazing African-American physician with a long record of service to the rural poor in Alabama.

Dr. Regina Benjamin's perspective as someone who has provided care in an under-served community -- and whose own family has been touched by America's various public health crises -- will be critical as Congress debates how to reform the health care system.

Benjamin is the founder and CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Alabama, a facility that offers primary care to people of all ages regardless of ability to pay. She previously chaired the Federation of State Medical Boards and served as the associate dean for rural health at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine.

In 2002, when she was elected president of the Medical Association of Alabama, Benjamin became the first African-American woman to preside over a state medical society. She was also the first African-American woman and physician under 40 to be elected to the American Medical Association board of trustees. She is a recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights as well as a MacArthur Foundation genius award.

Benjamin attended the Morehouse School of Medicine and went on to earn a medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham; she attended med school with financial assistance from the National Health Service Corps, which pays for medical education in exchange for service in under-served communities.

After completing her residency in family practice at the Medical Center of Central Georgia, Benjamin opened her own practice in Bayou La Batre, a rural shrimping community where few residents can afford private health insurance. Forced to moonlight in emergency rooms and nursing homes to keep her office open, she went on to earn an MBA from Tulane and converted her practice into a rural health clinic.

President Obama noted Dr. Benjamin's remarkable persistence in the face of tremendous adversity:

When people couldn't pay, she didn't charge them. When the clinic wasn't making money, she didn't take a salary for herself. When Hurricane George destroyed the clinic in 1998, she made house calls to all her patients while it was rebuilt. When Hurricane Katrina destroyed it again and left most of her town homeless, she mortgaged her house and maxed out her credit cards to rebuild that clinic for a second time. She tended to those who had been wounded in the storm, and when folks needed medicine, she asked the pharmacist to send the bill her way.

And when Regina's clinic was about to open for the third time, and a fire burned it to the ground before it could serve the first patient, well, you can guess what Dr. Benjamin did. With help from her community, she is rebuilding it again. One disabled patient brought her an envelope with $20 inside. Another elderly man said simply, "Maybe I can help. I got a hammer."

In her acceptance remarks. Benjamin noted that public health issues are very important to her personally, as her father died after suffering from diabetes and hypertension, her older brother and only sibling of an HIV-related illness, and her mother died of lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking. Benjamin also discussed the urgent need to reform the U.S. health care system.

"[A]s a nation, we have reached a sobering realization: Our health care system simply cannot continue on the path that we're on. Millions of Americans can't afford health insurance, or they don't have the basic health services available where they live," she said. "It should not be this hard for doctors and other health care providers to care for their patients. It shouldn't be this expensive for Americans to get health care in this country. And, Mr. President, thank you for putting health care reform at the top of your domestic agenda."

(For the Reader's Digest story about how Dr. Benjamin rebuilt her clinic following Hurricane Katrina, click here.)