Regina M. Benjamin, MD, MBA
Family Physician
Bayou Clinic
13833 Tapia Lane
Bayou La Batre, AL 36509
Phone: (251) 824-4985
Fax: (251) 626-2200
Website: www.bayouclinic.org
Email: blbrhc@aol.com
Favorite Quote: "You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give."Regina Benjamin nominated for Surgeon General
Mobile Press Register 7/13/09
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 today ticked off preventable diseases that have claimed nearly all her relatives -- diabetes, high blood pressure, lung cancer.
She pledged to fight so that, in her words, "no one falls through the cracks as we improve our health care system."
Benjamin, born in 1956 in Mobile, Ala., is a physician known for her work in rural health care whose Bayou La Batre clinic has persevered through hurricanes and fire. She is the founder of the Bayou La Batre Health Clinic, which treats poor and low-income patients, many of whom have no health insurance.
In September 2008, Benjamin was granted a MacArthur Fellowship, often called the "genius award." As part of the honor -- given by the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation -- she will receive $500,000 over five years to spend on whatever she chooses.
The foundation selects fellows from a range of talents and fields of study each year. She was among 25 fellows chosen in 2008, including a novelist, an inventor of musical instruments and a neuroscientist.
About 4,500 patients rely on Benjamin's clinic, which has a sliding scale of fees for people with low or no income.
Over the years, Benjamin has worked in hospital emergency rooms and nursing homes, moonlighting to keep the Bayou La Batre clinic in operation.
"Dr. Benjamin's contributions to furthering rural health care and to public service are extraordinary," Gov. Bob Riley said today. "Her dedication to the state of Alabama and to humanity is a model for doctors everywhere."
As a health care provider in the rural fishing town, she has been committed to serving patients even in times of crisis.
After Hurricane Georges struck the coast in 1998, she made house calls to patients in her pickup truck until her facility was repaired. In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina brought greater destruction in August 2005, she treated patients on the stage of a local community center.
"When Katrina happened, I went out to look for patients, but the patients didn't have any homes anymore, because all of Bayou La Batre was affected one way or the other," Benjamin told the Press-Register in 2008.
The clinic was quickly rebuilt, but then the rebuilt facility was destroyed by a fire on New Year's Day 2006.
Construction began in 2007 on an 8,000-square-foot clinic elevated on pilings at the site of the original office. During construction, Benjamin's clinic continued to take patients in a temporary office with a waiting room and two exam rooms.
In 1995, Benjamin became the first black woman to be elected to the American Medical Association's board of trustees. The same year, Time magazine named her one of the nation's "50 Future Leaders Age 40 and Under."
She was a 1998 recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for her commitment to providing health care to disadvantaged communities.
In 2002, she became the Medical Association of the State of Alabama's first black and first female president, representing 6,700 physicians in Alabama.
"She's chosen to care for the poorest and most needy of our population. That's not where the dollars are," said Diane Rowland, executive director of a Kaiser Family Foundation panel working on health care for the poor, in 2002. "The uninsured have a far less potent voice in national politics. Regina brings those issues to the table."
The following year she was honored by the National Governors Association.
Despite national acclaim, Benjamin, who was raised in Daphne, told the Press-Register in 2002 that she prefers to remain close to her roots. She received her medical degree from the University of Alabama in Birmingham after attending Xavier University in New Orleans and Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.
She earned a master's in business administration at Tulane University to learn the financial side of running a clinic.
Benjamin also told the newspaper in 2002 that her chief concern was the uninsured.
"I'm trying to show Congress how not having insurance affects more than the bottom line," she said. "It affects people's ability to go to work, and the cost of being out, missing work, is high."
Bayou La Batre's Dr. Regina Benjamin wins MacArthur 'genius award'
September 23, 2008
Dr. Regina Benjamin, a Bayou La Batre physician known for her work in rural health care whose clinic has persevered through hurricanes and fire, has been granted a MacArthur Fellowship, often called the "genius award."
Benjamin, 51, will receive $500,000 over the next five years from Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to spend on whatever she chooses. The foundation selects fellows from a range of talents and fields of study each year.
The founder of a rural clinic in Bayou La Batre is among this year's list of 25 fellows that includes a novelist, an inventor of musical instruments and a neuroscientist.
"It's just an honor to be chosen and even to be nominated," Benjamin said Monday.
The Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic treats all sick patients including the poor and uninsured. About 4,500 patients rely on the clinic that has a sliding scale of fees for people with low or no income.
As a health care provider in the rural fishing town, she has been committed to serving patients even in times of crisis.
After Hurricane Georges struck the coast in 1998, she made house calls to patients in her pickup truck until her facility was repaired.
In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, she treated patients on the stage of a local community center.
"When Katrina happened, I went out to look for patients, but the patients didn't have any homes anymore, because all of Bayou La Batre was affected one way or the other," Benjamin said.
The clinic was quickly rebuilt and the staff was beginning to move in by year's end. But in the early morning hours on New Year's Day 2006, a fire destroyed the rebuilt facility.
Construction on an 8,000-square-foot clinic elevated on pilings at the site of the original office began last year, Benjamin said, but her nonprofit operation has run out of rebuilding funds.
For now, the clinic continues to take patients in an office with a waiting room and two exam rooms, she said.
Benjamin said she has seen a rise in the number of her rural patients without insurance.
"People who were insured all their lives are losing their insurance, losing their jobs, or they just can't afford it anymore," Benjamin said.
Recipients of the MacArthur award are nominated anonymously. Benjamin had no idea she was in consideration until she got a phone call last week.
Fellows receive $100,000 each year over five years. They can spend the money however they choose.
Benjamin said she wants to give a lot of thought and planning to how she'll spend the grant, but she knows she wants to help the community with the award.
She has considered creating a scholarship for middle school and elementary school students that would encourage them to become health care providers and study math and science.
"We don't have enough kids from rural communities, and particularly minority kids, going into health careers," Benjamin said.
Benjamin was the first black woman to be elected to the American Medical Association's board of trustees.
She was a 1998 recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for her commitment to providing health care to disadvantaged communities.
The MacArthur Fellows Program, started in 1981, has named 781 fellows in its history. Fellows are selected based on their creativity and potential to make future contributions.
"As a group, this new class of fellows takes one's breath away," said Daniel J. Socolow, the program's director, in a prepared statement. "Each is an original, and each confirms that the creative individual is alive and well, at the cutting edge, and at work to make our world a better place."
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Dr. Benjamin is founder and CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. She is former associate dean for rural health at the University of South Alabama's College of Medicine in Mobile, where she administers the Alabama AHEC program and previously directed its Telemedicine Program. She serves as the current president of the Medical Association, of the State of Alabama. In 1998 she was the United States' recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. In 1995 she was elected to the American Medical Association's board of trustees, making her the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected. She has also served as president of the American Medical Association's Education and Research Foundation.
Born in 1956, Dr. Benjamin attended Xavier University in New Orleans and was a member of the second class of the Morehouse School of Medicine. She received her M.D. degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed her residency in family practice at the Medical Center of Central Georgia. After entering solo practice in Bayou La Batre (a small shrimping village along the gulf coast), Dr. Benjamin spent several years moonlighting in emergency rooms and nursing homes to keep her practice open. After receiving an MBA from Tulane University, she converted her office to a rural health clinic.
Dr. Benjamin is a diplomate of the American Board of Family Practice and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She was a Kellogg National Fellow and a Rockefeller Next Generation Leader. She serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, Catholic Health East, Medical Association of the State of Alabama, Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, Alabama State Committee of Public Health, Mobile County Medical Society, Alabama Rural Health Association, Leadership Alabama, Mobile Area Red Cross, Mercy Medical, Mobile Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Mobile, and Deep South Girl Scout Council.
She was appointed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala to the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act Committee and to the Council of Graduate Medical Education, and is a member of the Step 3 Committee. In Alabama she has served as vice president of the Governor's Commission on Aging and as a member of the Governor's Health Care Reform Task Force and the Governor's Task Force on Children's Health.
Dr. Benjamin was named by Time Magazine as one of the "Nation's 50 Future Leaders Age 40 and Under.” She was featured in a New York Times article, "Angel in a White Coat", and was chosen "Person of the Week" by ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, "Woman of the Year" by CBS This Morning, and "Woman of the Year" by People Magazine. She was featured on the December 1999 cover of Clarity Magazine and received the 2000 National Caring Award, which was inspired by Mother Teresa.
Consistent with her strong social conscience, Dr. Benjamin has spent time doing missionary work in Honduras and is on the Board of Physicians for Human Rights. Her interests include environmental issues and eco and adventure travel.
