President Barack Obama will nominate Dr. Regina Benjamin, who is well known of her fierce determination to rebuild her nonprofit medical clinic after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as U.S. Surgeon General (a position as people’s health advocate) in the Rose Garden today.

Regina Benjamin, an Alabama family physician, runs a rural health clinic in Bayou La Batre. She was the first African-American woman to head a state medical society and received a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” last year.

Benjamin became the first black woman and the youngest doctor elected to the American Medical Association’s board. She also received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights in 1998, and Pope Benedict XVI awarded her the distinguished service medal Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice.

Dr. Regina Benjamin Pictures