Regina Benjamin

Regina Marcia Benjamin (born October 26, 1956) is an American physician and a former vice admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who served as the 18th Surgeon General of the United States.

Benjamin previously directed a nonprofit primary care medical clinic in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, and served on the board of trustees for the Morehouse School of Medicine.

Benjamin was born in Mobile, Alabama on October 26, 1956.

She graduated from Fairhope High School in Fairhope, Alabama, and then attended college at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, where she was initiated into the Gamma Alpha chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

She is also a member of the second graduating class of Morehouse School of Medicine, then a two year program at Morehouse College.

She received her M.D. degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed her residency in family medicine at the Medical Center of Central Georgia.

About her experience as the first member of her family to attend medical school, she has stated "I had never seen a black doctor before I went to college."

After entering solo medical practice in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, Benjamin worked for several years in emergency rooms and nursing homes to financially support its mission.

After receiving an MBA from the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University, she converted her office to a rural health clinic.

Benjamin is a former associate dean for rural health at the College of Medicine at the University of South Alabama, where she administered the Alabama AHEC program and previously directed its Telemedicine Program.

In 1995, she was elected to the board of trustees of the American Medical Association, making her both the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected.

She also served on the Board of Trustees of Florida A & M University, appointed by Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

She served as the president of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama (MASA) in 2002.

Benjamin's clinic was destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina and in 2006 by a fire on New Year's Day, one day before the scheduled reopening.

She made headlines when she rebuilt the clinic a second time.

From 2008 to 2009, she served as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Federation of State Medical Boards, a national non-profit organization representing the 70 medical and osteopathic boards of the United States and its territories.

Benjamin is a Diplomate of the American Board of Family Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

She was a Kellogg National Fellow and also a Rockefeller Next Generation Leader.

She has served on boards and committees including the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured; Catholic Health East; Medical Association of the State of Alabama; Alabama Board of Medical Examiners; Alabama State Committee of Public Health; Mobile County Medical Society; Alabama Rural Health Association; Leadership Alabama; Mobile Area Red Cross; Mercy Medical; Mobile Chamber of Commerce; United Way of Mobile; Physicians for Human Rights; and Deep South Girl Scout Council.

She was appointed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala to the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act Committee and to the Council of Graduate Medical Education, and she is also a member of the "Step 3 Committee."

In Alabama, she formerly served as vice president of the Governor's Commission on Aging, and also formerly as a member of the Governor's Health Care Reform Task Force and the Governor's Task Force on Children's Health.

She was a paid consultant for Burger King, contracted to provide nutritional advice on their offerings.

On July 13, 2009, President Barack Obama announced the choice of Benjamin for the position of Surgeon General of the United States and as a Medical Director in the regular corps of the Public Health Service.

On October 7, 2009, Benjamin was unanimously approved by the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Benjamin was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on October 29, 2009.

Benjamin accepted the President's nomination, and made clear her dissatisfaction with the current health care system, in terms of accessibility as well as cost.

Also in accepting her nomination, Benjamin described her own hardships faced by disease and illness in her own family.

She noted the deaths of her brother, who died of HIV, as well as her father, who died of high blood pressure and diabetes, and her mother who died of lung cancer, all of which, she implied, were "preventable diseases."

In January 2010, Benjamin released her first document, entitled "The Surgeon General’s Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation."

In it she highlighted the alarming trend of overweight and obese Americans, and offered a blueprint for grassroots efforts to make changes that promote the health and wellness of families and communities.

Her work in this area has continued.

On March 10, 2016, it was announced that Benjamin will chair the National Kidney Foundation's CKDinsight summit.

The summit is slated for fall of 2016, and it's a component of the National Kidney Foundation's new CKDintercept program, a multi-year initiative that aims to elevate chronic kidney disease (CKD) diagnosis and management to the front lines of preventive health in the U.S. health system.

In addition to Dr. Benjamin, the list of invited stakeholders includes, but is not limited to, medical professional groups, large healthcare systems, laboratory services, advocacy groups, technology industry experts, and government and retail insurers.

They will meet to develop innovative approaches to overcoming the obstacles that inhibit timely diagnosis of kidney disease.

The goal of the meeting is to generate a clear, cohesive strategy that will create a roadmap for change that will elevate the national perception of kidney disease and create a culture where early detection is a priority.

In July 2016, Benjamin joined the Board of Directors of Darkness to Light, a national nonprofit advocate for child sexual abuse prevention.

"This is not simply an issue for one family or community – it is a public health issue that affects society as a whole," Benjamin has said of the issue of child sexual abuse.

Benjamin is founder and CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a small shrimping village along the Gulf Coast.

Benjamin was the subject of a Reader's Digest article that chronicled her efforts to rebuild the clinic after Hurricane Katrina.