Surgeon General nominee’s health care career launched in Atlanta

Washington — As with any 8 a.m. class, it wasn’t easy getting students to the community and family health class at Atlanta’s Morehouse School of Medicine.

But Regina Benjamin, the bright-eyed girl from Mobile, Ala., was always on time, enthusiastic and quick to participate, recalled her teacher.

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Dr. Regina Benjamin is founder and currently CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic, located in a fishing village on Alabama’s Gulf Coast.

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“When she came here, she was already mature in a lot of ways,” said Dr. David Satcher, who prior to becoming U.S. Surgeon General was Benjamin’s teacher at the Morehouse School of Medicine between 1980-1982. “She took this very seriously.”

Nearly 30 years later, Benjamin’s tenacity and dedication to community health has her poised to follow her teacher’s footsteps as the nation’s next surgeon general.

President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Benjamin to become the nation’s highest-ranking health official and a national spokesperson for health-related issues. Senate confirmation is not expected to be a challenge.

At a White House press conference, Obama praised Benjamin for her dedication to rural healthcare and underserved communities — dedication rooted in her experience at Morehouse School of Medicine and later at the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon, where she did her residency from 1984-1987. Each year, the Macon teaching hospital awards the “Benjamin Cup” named after her to the group of residents that best exemplifies the spirit of volunteerism and service.

After completing Morehouse School of Medicine’s two-year program, Benjamin got her MD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She also has a BS in chemistry from Xavier University and a MBA from Tulane University.

Now 52, Benjamin is best known for her Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic located in a tiny fishing village on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, where she treats patients suffering everything from shark bites to cancer, many of whom can’t afford to pay her. After hurricanes and fires destroyed her clinic, Benjamin rebuilt it using her credit cards, personal savings and donations.

“Through floods and fires and severe want, Regina Benjamin has refused to give up,” Obama said. She “represents what’s best about health care in America — doctors and nurses who give and care and sacrifice for the sake of their patients.”

While Benjamin gained attention for her work in Alabama, she said her inspiration comes partly from two doctors in Atlanta whom she calls her mentors - Satcher and Dr. Louis Sullivan.

Sullivan, founder of Morehouse School of Medicine and former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “taught me leadership,” Benjamin said at the White House on Monday.

“From him I learned how to impact policy at the federal, state and local levels, to help our patients and to help our communities,” she said.

From Satcher, who was surgeon general from 1998-2001 before returning to the Morehouse School of Medicine, she learned about the importance of bringing medical care to underserved and underprivileged areas.

“She really is a person of great humanity,” said Sullivan, who served in the first Bush administration. “I mean, she’s received payments in chickens and vegetables by people who haven’t any money … and she still makes house calls.”

Sullivan, who still has close ties in Washington, said he recommended Benjamin for the job. In contrast to Obama’s highly visible previous pick for surgeon general — Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s Atlanta-based medical correspondent — Benjamin is less known outside of medical circles.

But her work has gained her a wide range of accolades and awards.

In 1995, she became the first physician under 40 and the first African-American woman to be named to the American Medical Association’s Board of Trustees. Three years later, she received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. In 2002, she became president of Alabama’s state medical association. Last year, she was a MacArthur Genius Award recipient.

If confirmed by the Senate, Benjamin made it clear she plans to be a vocal advocate for health care reform — one of the Obama Adminstration’s biggest and most contentious initatives.

“These are trying times in the health care field,” she said. “And as a nation, we have reached a sobering realization: Our health care system simply cannot continue on the path that we’re on.”

Benjamin said her father died after struggling with diabetes and hypertension. Her brother died at age 44 from HIV-related illness and her mother died from lung cancer, she said.

“While … I cannot change my family’s past, I can be a voice in the movement to improve our nation’s health care and our nation’s health for the future,” she said.