When President Barack Obama tapped Dr. Regina Benjamin, a rural Alabama family physician, to serve as U.S. Surgeon General, she likes to joke that her client base went overnight from several hundred to nearly 300 million.
Benjamin, an alumna of historically Black Xavier University of Louisiana and Morehouse School of Medicine, was busy tending to the needs of her diverse patient group for 23 years as head of the La Batre Rural Health Clinic. Now, she is just as busy in her new capacity helping the Obama administration devise and promote healthy living initiatives. As Surgeon General in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Benjamin has the official rank of vice admiral, overseeing the operational command of 6,500 uniformed health officers around the world.
As Benjamin approached the Nov. 3 anniversary of her first year in office, she paused for an interview with Diverse to share her views on a range of issues.
“Prevention is my priority,” says Benjamin. Her efforts range from stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS, a topic she says that doesn’t generate enough discussion in the African-American community, to promoting breastfeeding.
“If babies are exclusively breast fed the first six months,” Benjamin says, “they are less likely to become obese. Breastfeeding is lower in the African-American community.” On other topics, she said the following:
Diverse: You have been telling audiences across the country that “exercise is the new medicine.” What do you mean by that?
RB: Exercise is just as important as medicine. You can get as many benefits from exercise as you can many pills. It’s one of the ideas we want doctors to prescribe.
