President Barack Obama Picks Dr. Regina Benjamin, the "Angel in a White Coat," as the Next Surgeon General

President Barack Obama has picked Dr. Regina Benjamin as the next surgeon general. Dr. Benjamin hails from the Deep South, rural Alabama to be exact. She made headlines in the wake of Hurricane Katrina with an unyielding determination to rebuild her nonprofit medical clinic. As you know, the surgeon general is the advocate of the people and the position can be a very powerful and effective one with the right personality -- like Dr. Benjamin. According to media reports, about 10 years ago, the New York Times referred to her as an "angel in a white coat." She is a country doctor who made house calls along the impoverished Gulf Coast and was paid whatever her patients could afford. She has tirelessly called for improvements in health disparities, pushed by the need in her own community of Bayou La Batre, Ala., a small shrimping village along the gulf coast.

Dr. Benjamin is the first black woman and the youngest doctor (under 40) elected to the American Medical Association's board of trustees. She received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights in 1998 and Pope Benedict XVI awarded her the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal for her distinguished service. Dr. Benjamin also serves on the Board of Physicians for Human Rights. She is a former Kellogg National Fellow and has been featured as ABC Television's Person of the Week, and in 1996 was chosen by CBS This Morning as Woman of the Year. Dr. Benjamin is a graduate of Xavier University, Morehouse School of Medicine, and the University of Alabama School of Medicine

Her nonprofit clinic was rebuilt by volunteers after being destroyed by Katrina, only to burn down months later. Benjamin later told of her patients' desperation that she rebuild again, recalling one woman who handed her an envelope with a $7 donation to help. "If she can find $7, I can figure out the rest," Benjamin said last fall as she received a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," money she dedicated to finishing that job. Source: Huffington Post

I am pleased with the president's nomination of Dr. Benjamin and I am glad he chose her for the position. She will be a far more effective surgeon general that Dr. Sanjay Gupta could have ever been. I am confident that she will be confirmed by the Senate. We all know how some of the Republican senators like to take on the role of bottom feeders to stymie President Obama's nominees, but I am sure she will be confirmed without delay. I would imagine that the last thing the Republican Party needs to revisit is the nightmare that ensued in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which was under the watch of President George W. Bush.