Obama Taps Alabama Non-Profit Doctor Regina Benjamin To Be Surgeon General

President Barack Obama has tapped Regina Benjamin to be his Surgeon General replacing Vice Admiral Richard Carmona. She currently runs the non-profit medical clinic in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Dr. Benjamin will be the third African-American and the third woman to hold that position. She is President Obama’s second choice for the position. CNN’s resident medical expert Dr. Sanjay Gupta was widely rumored to have been offered the position, but declined it to continue his work where he was.

Dr. Benjamin was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1956, and attended Xavier University in New Orleans. She received her MD from University of Alabama, and did her residency at Medical Center of Central Georgia concentrating on family practice. In 1995, she was elected to the American Medical Association’s board of trustees. She was the first person under 40, and the first African-American woman to garner that honor.

Dr. Benjamin has had problems with her practice’s building including the fact that it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and then by fire a year later. She rebuilt a second time. The Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic serves a small shrimping community along the coast. For her work, Dr. Benjamin was awarded the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights in 1998.

Dr. Benjamin does have some experience within the halls of politics. She was Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala’s appointee to the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act Committee and to the Council of Graduate Medical Education.

Currently little is known about her stances or knowledge concerning such hot button issues as abortion and LGBT medical issues. However, she is a vocal advocate for insuring and covering those who lack health coverage. The issue of universalized health coverage and health care costs are a key issue for the Obama Administration moving forward.