President Barack Obama nominated for surgeon general a rural family physician who has faced hurricanes, flood and fire to care for impoverished patients along Alabama's Gulf Coast.
Obama says Dr. Regina Benjamin understands the needs of the poor and uninsured, making her uniquely qualified to be America's doctor as his administration tries to revamp the health care system.
For her part, Benjamin on Monday ticked off preventable diseases that have claimed nearly all her relatives-diabetes, high
blood pressure, lung cancer.
A decade ago, the New York Times called her "angel in a white coat," a country doctor who made house calls along the impoverished Gulf Coast, paid whatever her patients could scrounge.
From those early days she has emerged as a national leader in the call to improve health disparities,
pushed by the need in her own fishing community of Bayou La Batre, Ala., and its diverse patient mix-where immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and
Laos make up a growing part of the population.
Dr. Regina Benjamin
