Dr. Benton is an Associate Professor with the UNM Dept. of Family Community Medicine. She received her M.D. from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, TX and completed her Family Medicine Residency at the University of New Mexico. She completed a Mini-fellowship in Pediatric Developmental Disabilities at the University Texas and a one-year fellowship in Adult Developmental Medicine in Greenville, North Carolina.

Dr. Benton is the principal investigator/medical director of the Transdisciplinary Evaluation and Support Clinic (TEASC), the Adult Special Needs Clinic, the Adult Cerebral Palsy Clinic and the NM Department of Health SAFE Feeding Clinic (Supports and Assessments for Feeding and Eating). She has been serving as the primary clinical consultant to the New Mexico Department of Health’s Developmental Disabilities Services Division since 2001.

Dr. Benton has focused her clinical practice on family and patient-centered care delivery for individuals with complex special healthcare needs and adults with chronic conditions of childhood onset. She also is interested in research concerning cerebral palsy, developmental disabilities and atypical/nonverbal presentation of pain and illness in the patient with intellectual/developmental disabilities.

Dr. Benton is Board Certified in Family Medicine.