The Top 21: Our List of Outstanding Black Doctors
Dr. Regina Benjamin is America’s doctor. She is the 18th Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service. Dr. Benjamin managed to develop a medical career that never lost it’s focus on service. Early on, she erected a clinic in a fishing village in Alabama to help tend to the medical needs of uninsured residents. She earned her medical degree from the Morehouse School of Medicine and shortly after graduating began to accrue high honors for her work. In 1995 she was the first physician under 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected to the American Medical Association’s Board of Trustees. She served as president of the American Medical Association’s Education and Research Foundation, as well as chair of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA). In 1998 Dr Benjamin was the United States recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. She also received the 2000 National Caring Award, the papal honor Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice from Pope Benedict XVI and a MacArthur Genius Award Fellowship.
