U.S. Surgeon General Visits Burlingame and San Mateo

United States Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin visited Burlingame and San Mateo medical facilities Tuesday and addressed local community leaders about her goals and vision under her role as surgeon general.

Invited by the Mills-Peninsula African American Community Health Advisory Committee(AACHAC), Benjamin began the morning learning about the group, which identifies and addresses health concerns affecting San Mateo County, especially its African American community members, through collaboration with Mills-Peninsula Health Services.

She then spoke at Burlingame’s Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in front of a crowd of more than 250 people, focusing on her priorities as surgeon general and every person’s ability to make a difference in public health, before continuing on to tour San Mateo Medical Center’s Innovative Care Clinic.

During her talk, she stressed that caring for people is more than healing or medicating, but taking a look at all the factors in a person’s life—a lesson she learned while practicing in a small Alabama fishing town.

“I…learned that my patients had problems that my prescription pad by itself wasn’t enough,” she said. She noted the effects of Hurricane Katrina, unclean drinking water and illiteracy as other health obstacles her patients faced.

Benjamin said that while giving Americans health coverage is a step in the right direction, it stops short of solving problems like the ones she saw, and these health disparities need closer examination.

“People might not realized being born an African American child, your risk of certain things are higher and something’s causing this,” she said. “We need to figure out what it is and bring it to equity.”

Social determinants—factors such as where people live, exposure to certain advertisements, prevalence of violence and proximity to affordable, healthy food—all impact health. Benjamin said studies show poverty has just as large of a health impact as smoking or heavy drinking, so these issues must be addressed before they lead to significant health problems.

This mindset corresponds to Benjamin’s overall mission of preventative care.

“Prevention is the foundation of our nation’s health system,” she said. “I’ve seen so many missed opportunities for prevention.”

As part of her preventative efforts, Benjamin outlined six main areas of public health she aims to improve. The first is obesity—primarily childhood obesity. She has been publicly walking different cities, such as Los Angeles, Boston and even the Grand Canyon to emphasize the importance of exercise.

“The idea is that if I can do it, anybody can,” she said. “All it is is a walk.”

Benjamin, who lost her mother to lung cancer, will also focus on smoking and tobacco, and produced a 700-page report on how smoking causes cancer and why it is addictive.

“Smoking and tobacco is every surgeon general’s priority, and it’s mine, as well,” she said. She commended California’s strict tobacco and smoking laws.

Another issue close to Benjamin’s heart is HIV/AIDS—she watched her brother and many of his friend die due to the disease.

“There was such a loss to society of all these young people,” she said. “We tend to forget that people are still dying today.” She is concerned with the growing number of girls and woman with HIV/AIDS.

Other priorities include encouraging breast feeding, which has numerous health benefits for both babies and their mothers; addressing mental health issues, especially in conjunction with substance abuse and preventing violence and youth violence, which Benjamin said has climbed to the level of a public health issue.

She supports new health care legislation, and told the story of President John Adams creating a series of public hospitals after an outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia and the creation of the Public Health Services Commissioned Corps, which Benjamin oversees today.

“I tell you that because that’s an example of what strong leadership from a president can do to address the acute health care needs of a county,” she said. “And that’s what President Obama is doing with health reform.”

The Commissioned Corps has grown since President Adams, and now has teams on standby to respond to health emergencies, such as if health risks to Americans transpired due to current nuclear problems in Japan—something Benjamin said is a concern, but not currently a threat.

“There’s always a concern,” she said. “The thing is to be prepared.”

Nuclear health risks aside, Benjamin said maintaining health on a day to day basis requires working as a community, demanding public health be a priority with local leaders and becoming effective leaders.

A good leader rises to a certain level of success, “but you don’t forget to reach back and pull someone else up,” she said. “A great leader won’t stop…they’ll push them out in front of them.”

Benjamin continues her Bay Area tour in Berkeley and San Francisco later this week.