If the symbolic power of President Barack Obama’s nominee for U.S. surgeon general is lost on anyone, they’re probably not old enough to remember house calls, personalized medical treatment, and a practitioner who cares more for patients than pelf.
Dr. Regina Benjamin, 52, whose nomination was announced yesterday, is a medical anachronism who rebuilt a microcosmic health care system – a rural clinic devastated by two hurricanes then destroyed in a fire – because she held the needs of patients as her highest priority.
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“When people couldn’t pay, she didn’t charge them,” Obama said of the family practice physician. “When the clinic wasn’t making money, she didn’t take a salary for herself.”
Regina Benjamin
Almost 20 years ago, Benjamin opened her clinic in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a fishing village of 2,500 known to fans of a 1994 hit film as the home of Forrest Gump’s shrimp boats. Four years later, it was ravaged by Hurricane Georges, again by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and burned to the ground soon after it was rebuilt. Benjamin’s determination to rebuild each time won her a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” last fall. She chose to spend it on again reopening the clinic.
In accepting the no-strings award, Benjamin told the story of a poor patient giving her a few dollars toward the rebuilding effort. “If she can find $7,” Benjamin said, “I can figure out the rest.”
During yesterday’s Rose Garden announcement, Benjamin expanded on the theme. “As a physician, my priority has always been the needs of my patients,” she said. “I decided I would treat patients regardless of their ability to pay. However, it has not been an easy road.
“It should not be this hard for doctors and other health care providers to care for their patients. It shouldn’t be this expensive for Americans to get health care in this country.”
Fighting preventable illness and its cost in human suffering is personal for her, Benjamin explained. Her father died of diabetes and hypertension; her brother of HIV. Lung cancer killed her mother, a lifetime smoker, and has left her uncle “struggling for each breath.” While “I cannot change my family’s past,” she said, “I can be a voice to improve our nation’s health for the future.”
After earning her bachelor’s degree from Xavier University of Louisiana in 1979, her medical degree from Morehouse School of Medicine in 1982, and a medical doctorate from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1984, Benjamin finished her residency in family practice at the Medical Center of Central Georgia in 1987. In exchange for promising to practice in a medically underserved community, Benjamin’s training was paid for by the National Health Service Corps.
She was the first black women to serve on the board of the American Medical Association and also earned a master’s in business administration from Tulane University in 1991, which was interpreted by some as a sign of political ambitions.
If confirmed by the Senate, Benjamin said she intends to be “America’s family physician,” and promised “to communicate directly to the American people, to help guide them through whatever changes come with health care reform.
“I want to make sure that no one, no one, falls through the cracks.”
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