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Obama names new surgeon general  

President Obama will name a new surgeon general at 11:40 a.m. in the Rose Garden. According to the Associated Press, his pick is Regina Benjamin, a family physician from Alabama.

Benjamin made headlines after Hurricane Katrina for her efforts to rebuild her Bayou La Batre, Ala., health clinic, which serves 4,400 people who would have a hard time finding health care elsewhere, the AP says.

Last fall, she received a MacArthur Foundation "genuis grant," and she is a recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.

Noon ET: Update: Calling the surgeon general's post "a physician's dream," Benjamin pledged to be "America's doctor" and to help guide the nation through whatever health care changes are approved by Congress and the White House.

"Public health issues are very personal to me," she said, recounting how her father died of diabetes and hypertension, her mother from smoking-related lung cancer and her brother and only sibling from HIV-related complications. In each case, she said, her family members died from preventable diseases.

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