President Obama on Monday named as his surgeon general a rural health care expert who helped rebuild her coastal Alabama community’s health services in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Obama’s choice, Dr. Regina Benjamin, is a family physician who has led Alabama’s state medical society but who has also spent much of her career focusing on care for poor, rural populations.

“Regina Benjamin also represents what’s best about health care in America... those Americans who would do anything to heal a fellow American,” said Obama in announcing her nomination.

The president, focused once more on domestic policy after last week’s overseas trip, used the announcement to renew his call for congressional action on a health care overhaul.

“I’ve got no illusions that it’s going to be easy to get over the finish line,” he said, acknowledging the delays and debates still flaring on Capitol Hill. “There are going to be more debates and more disagreements before all is said and done. But health care reform must be done.”

Benjamin is the founder and chief executive of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in coastal Alabama, south of Mobile. She did her medical studies at the University of Alabama before going into solo practice. Eventually, she turned her practice into the rural health clinic to serve the small shrimp-fishing town.

Bayou La Batre was hit particularly hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In the aftermath of the storm, Benjamin directed the rebuilding of the clinic, which was able to get quickly up and running again to provide health services to the many local residents who had lost homes and were in need of care.

“This is a physician’s dream,” Benjamin said at the White House announcement. “Public health issues are very personal to me,” she said, explaining how her parents had died of diabetes, hypertension and lung cancer — likely preventable conditions.

“My family’s not here with me today, at least not in person, at least in part because of preventable diseases,” Benjamin said.