PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

Presidency part of service for Alabama doctor

Regina Benjamin, MD, becomes the first African-American woman to head the state's medical society.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Sept. 16, 2002.

Little Bayou La Batre didn't stand a chance against the fury of Hurricane Georges.

When the storm struck the fishing village on Alabama's Gulf Coast in September 1998, water flooded streets and washed into homes. The Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic wasn't immune to the devastation.

"We got five feet of storm surge. We lost everything," said Regina Benjamin, MD, a family physician who runs the clinic that treats shrimpers, factory workers and others who eke out a living in the town of 2,500.

Medical equipment and computers were gone, but hope survived.

Dr. Benjamin continued to see patients, mostly by making house calls in her 1988 Ford pickup. She rebuilt the clinic nearby, and today it stands as a testimony of her commitment to care for the people of Bayou La Batre.

The doctor's compassion, ambition and determination have served her well in this rural town and beyond.

In June, Dr. Benjamin, 45, was installed as president of the Medical Assn. of the State of Alabama -- making her the first woman and first African-American to be president of the state medical association, which years ago kept out minorities.

She is associate dean for rural health at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine in Mobile. She is a member of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. In 1995, she became the first African-American woman elected to the AMA Board of Trustees when she was the first physician to fill the board's spot for a young physician trustee.

"I enjoy what I do. It's not like work. It's fun," she said. [...]

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