I applaud President Obama’s choice for Surgeon General.
Dr. Regina Benjamin looks like an excellent choice from what I’ve read and heard so far. Here’s what NPR had to say about her:

As a small-town doctor, Benjamin moonlighted in emergency rooms and nursing homes until she could convert her office into a rural health clinic, according to her Web site. She founded the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in 1990, serving a community of 2,500, including a large number of immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

The clinic provides physical exams, routine medical care, preventive care, lab work and minor surgeries regardless of whether patients have medical insurance or the money to pay for their care.

When the clinic was wiped out by Hurricane Georges in 1998 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Benjamin treated her patients in their homes and mortgaged her house to rebuild, the president said.

The clinic was destroyed a third time by a fire, leaving Benjamin and the community to dedicate themselves to rebuilding again with donations. “Through floods and fires and severe wont, Regina Benjamin has refused to give up,” Obama said.

Charged with promoting disease prevention, acting as chief health educator, and coordinating the 6,000 member U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, she is uniquely qualified as a family physician. Half of our days involve educating patients about their illnesses and trying to prevent complications from chronic diseases, while coordinating the fragmented care patients receive from various institutions and specialists.  Dr. Benjamin has also shown an amazing willingness to serve her patients and to work for the betterment of her community at the expense of her own wallet. While I’m not advocating that doctors work for less money, I do think the contributions of family doctors have long been undervalued and trivialized, and that a redesign towards a health care system that rewards preventive care, evidence-based good performance, and a team approach to chronic illness is inevitable, and mostly desirable.

Can you name any Surgeon Generals since Koop? Most people can’t I’m sure. And Sanjay Gupta from CNN would have come off insincere like a franchise, having branded his name and small empire so extensively. From the limited info I have, it seems like this pick is a diamond in the rough.

I also find Obama’s choice a natural one for him. He is an avid reader and an accomplished writer, and a student of human story. The narrative of Dr. Regina Benjamin’s life, like Sotomayor’s, is one of adversity overcome, promise redeemed, and hope not lost within the still great American meritocracy. Regardless of your politics, you have to respect her story.

Good luck, Dr. Benjamin.  Make us proud.