Update | 6:46 p.m.
President Obama selected Dr. Regina Benjamin, an Alabama family physician, as the U.S. surgeon general on Monday, announcing the appointment during a ceremony in the Rose Garden.
An African-American, Dr. Benjamin is nationally known for establishing a rural health clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala. — a small, medically underserved shrimping village along the Gulf Coast. Hurricana Katrina destroyed the clinic in 2005, and then when it was rebuilt, the clinic burned down on the eve of re-opening.
In 2002, she became the president of the Alabama Medical Association, making her the first African-American woman to be president of a state medical society in the United States. In September, she was one of 25 recipients of the $500,000 “genius awards,” awarded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Read more…