According to CNN, President Obama will be nominating Regina Benjamin, MD as the Surgeon General of the United States. Dr. Benjamin just finished up as Chairperson for the American Medical Association's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) and the Chairman of Federation of State Medical Boards.
Dr. Benjamin is a kind hearted physician who is completely focused on patient care.
She founded Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in the fishing village of Bayou La Batre, Alabama.
The clinic was completely destroyed by Hurricane Georges in 1998 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but Benjamin rebuilt it each time and continued to offer medical care to the village's 2,500 residents.
After Katrina she made the switch to electronic medical records, in her words the conversion was easy we had less than 100 records to move over that were not destroyed in the hurricane.
Many of her family practice patients are uninsured, according to the MacArthur Foundation, which last year awarded her one of its $500,000 "genius" grants.
Her patient population includes immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, who make up a third of Bayou La Batre's population.
Dr. Benjamin will make an excellent Surgeon General and will serve our country well.