Vice Admiral Regina Marcia Benjamin, USPHS, is a physician who serves as the 18th Surgeon General of the United States. In 1990, she gained national notoriety when she founded the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in the small shrimping village of Bayou La Batre, Ala. Benjamin said the idea for the clinic came after she spent three years working as a doctor in under-served areas for the National Health Services Corps. In 1995, Dr. Benjamin became the first black woman elected to the American Medical Association’s Board of Trustees. 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 U.S.
