Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin Joins Morehouse School of Medicine's “Danforth Dialogues”
MSM President and CEO Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice and Dr. Benjamin discuss her years at MSM and her time as Surgeon General.
ATLANTA, GA – JULY 21, 2025 – Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) has released the June 2025 edition of its "Danforth Dialogues" podcast, featuring a conversation between MSM President and CEO Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice and former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin, who also served as the commencement speaker as the school celebrates its 50th Anniversary.
Dr. Benjamin, the 18th U.S. Surgeon General who served in the Obama Administration, was raised in Daphne, Alabama, and graduated from Xavier University in New Orleans. She was in the second entering class of the Morehouse School of Medicine when it was a two-year institution.
Dr. Benjamin received her medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a Master of Business Administration from Tulane University. After completing Family Medicine residency in Macon, GA, she was sent to a National Health Service Corps Community Health Center site near Bayou La Batre, AL. She stayed in the area going into private practice before turning her office into a nonprofit clinic that has received national recognition for her work in rural health care.
In her conversation with Dr. Montgomery Rice, Dr. Benjamin said she didn’t start out in life wanting to be a physician. “People say, ’Did you always want to be a doctor?’” Dr. Benjamin said. “No, I never thought of it. I didn't think I couldn't, but I'd never seen a Black doctor till I got to Xavier.”
While she may not have initially planned to enter medicine, Dr. Benjamin said her time at MSM helped shape her career but not just in the classroom. “We were exposed to the civil rights leaders in Atlanta,” she said. “One of the things that was most remarkable about being in Atlanta at that time was the number of civil rights leaders, such as Benjamin E. Mays, Julian Bond, Hosea Williams and Ambassador Andrew Young, and MSM required us as students to frequently interact with them.”
That exposure during her two years at Morehouse School of Medicine, along with spending time with physicians working in rural communities, foreshadowed Dr. Benjamin’s career in Bayou La Batre where she founded her clinic. It also foreshadowed her career as one of the leading figures in the American Medical Association where she became the first person under the age 40 and the first Black woman to serve on the AMA Board of Directors and ultimately U.S. Surgeon General.
“I was involved with every committee in Washington so I knew most of the (Obama) transition team and they would call me to help them find people for various positions and they called about the Surgeon General position, and I was giving them names, and they said, ’How about you?’” Dr. Benjamin recalled. Although she initially turned down the offer, she later accepted.
Asked by Dr. Montgomery Rice to list some of her key accomplishments in her time in Washington, Dr. Benjamin pointed to the publication of the first ever National Prevention Strategy. “I'm really proud of that because we'd never had the nation focus on prevention before and it was a collaboration of federal agencies, groups and organizations around the country, actually around the world, and they use that document to this day,” she said.
To hear this edition of the podcast, click here
For more information about the Danforth Dialogues leadership series, click here.
To listen and subscribe to the Danforth Dialogues podcast, click here.
For more information about Morehouse School of Medicine, please visit MSM.edu.
About Morehouse School of Medicine
Founded in 1975, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) is among the nation's leading educators of primary care physicians, biomedical scientists, and public health professionals. An independent and private historically-Black medical school, MSM was recognized by the Annals of Internal Medicine as the nation's number one medical school in fulfilling a social mission—the creation and advancement of health equity. Morehouse School of Medicine's faculty and alumni are noted for excellence in teaching, research, and public policy, as well as exceptional patient care. MSM is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award doctoral and master's degrees. To learn more about programs and donate today, please visit www.msm.edu or call 404-752-1500.
Contact
Jamille Bradfield
Morehouse School of Medicine
jbradfield@msm.edu