U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, has announced she is stepping down next month. A friend of our profession who backed the monumental U.S. Public Health Service pharmacy report to the Surgeon General with a landmark letter of support, VADM Benjamin will be missed in her role as America’s Doctor.

In her letter of support, Benjamin wrote that the report to the Surgeon General supported the case for further exploration of ways to optimize the role of pharmacists; utilization of pharmacists as an essential part of the health care team; recognition of pharmacists as health care providers, clinicians, and an essential part of the health care team; and the need for compensation models to sustain pharmacists’ patient-oriented, quality improvement services, which “may require further evolution of legislative or policy language and additional payment reform considerations.”

We thank Dr. Benjamin for her insightful support of pharmacy’s quest to play a greater role in health care. We wish her well and hope to work with her in the future.