President Obama has nominated Dr. Regina Benjamin to be Surgeon General. I haven’t been able to find out much yet about her beyond the bullet-point summary: first woman of color, and youngest person, to be elected to the AMA’s board of trustees, her clinic was destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina and, right before reopening, in 2006 by fire. It sounds like she’s particularly focused on addressing the health-care needs of the poor and underprivileged, which is good. There doesn’t appear to be much information available about her views on reproductive health or on “alternative” “medicine,” but I expect more will come out on those topics soon.
