Obama nominates Dr. Regina Benjamin as surgeon general

In a White House rose garden ceremony at noon on Monday, Obama cited Dr. Benjamin as an example of someone who had seen what was broken about our health care system.

"I am honored and I am humbled to be nominated to serve as the United States Surgeon General," Dr. Benjamin said.

She described it as a "physician's dream" but more than just a job. Her father died of cardiovascular disease and her older brother died at 44 of HIV-related disease, she said.

"Millions of Americans can't afford health insurance or they don't have basic health services available where they live."

The announcement came on the same day when another Obama appointment, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, was being presented to the Senate for the first day of confirmation hearings. And it comes as the president prepares to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People annual convention in New York this week.

Dr. Benjamin founded the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in 1990 to serve the Gulf Coast fishing community of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a small village destroyed twice in the past decade by Hurricanes Georges, in 1998, and Katrina, in 2005. Benjamin rebuilt her clinic after each disaster.

Benjamin received her B.S. degree from Xavier University of Louisiana in 1979, attended Morehouse School of Medicine from 1980 to 1982, and received her M.D. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1984. She also holds an M.B.A. from Tulane University.