| Public Policy |
| Obama's Nominee for Surgeon General |
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By David F. Duncan, DrPH, FAAHB
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| 2009/07/14 |
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| President Obama's selection of a primary care physician for Surgeon General may disaapoint those who would have preferred a public health physician. |
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| President Obama has chosen Dr. Regina Benjamin, a family physician and founder of a rural health clinic in the small, shrimp-farming town of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, to be our nation's next surgeon general. By every account, she is the sort of physician every one of us would wish to have as our primary medical caregiver, but only a few of us are so fortunate. She is patient-centered and a practitioner of community based care. All these are excellent points in favor of her selection to be our next Surgeon General. Dr. Georges Benjamin (no relation to the nominee), Executive Director of the American Public Health Association, commented on the nomination saying, "We want to emphasize prevention, primary care and early intervention, and we have somebody now who does that for a living."
In announcing the appointment, the President stated that "For nearly two decades, Dr. Regina Benjamin has seen in a very personal way what is broken about our health care system." His announcement of the nomination had been prefaced by another outstanding statement of the need for major health care reform. Reform of health care access and financing in America is a vital public health concern and the Surgeon General can play an important role in reforming the system, BUT that is not a primary responsibility of the Surgeon General. Medical care is important to the health of the public but it has far less impact than environmental and community interventions that should be the main concerns of a Surgeon General.
As with President Obama's choice for "Drug Czar", I think that Dr. Benjamin is a very good choice for the position, but that some one with training and experience in public health would have been a better choice. If only she had gone to Tulane for an M.P.H. instead of an M.B.A., I would be more confident of her qualifications to be sort of Surgeon General this nation really needs. In my personal opinion, the M.B.A.s in the health care system are a major part of the problem, not likely to contribute to the solution.
Despite my preference for a public health professional for Surgeon General, I consider Dr. Benjamin to be a good choice for Surgeon General and I hope to see her nomination expeditiously confirmed. We need a Surgeon General more than ever with health care reform finally in play and "swine flu" looming. I will be urging my Senators to vote for her confirmation. I hope you will all do the same.
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