Benjamin Solomon "Ben" Carson, Sr. (born September 18, 1951) is an American
neurosurgeon and the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at
Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, by President
George W. Bush in 2008.
Early life
Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan and was raised by his single
mother, Sonya Carson. He struggled academically throughout elementary
school, but started to excel in middle school and throughout high
school. After graduating with honors from Southwestern High School, he
attended
Yale University, where he earned a degree in Psychology. He chose to go to Yale because in
College Bowl,
an old knowledge competition TV program, he saw Yale compete against
and defeat many other colleges, including Harvard. Carson wanted to
participate in
College Bowl, but the program was discontinued. From Yale, he attended
University of Michigan Medical School.
Career
Carson's
hand-eye coordination and three-dimensional reasoning skills made him a gifted surgeon.
[1]
After medical school, he became a neurosurgery resident at Johns
Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Starting off as an adult neurosurgeon,
Carson became more interested in pediatrics. He believed that with
children, "what you see is what you get,
[1]
... when they’re in pain they clearly show it with a frown on their
face or when they are happy they show it by smiling brightly."
At age 33, he became the youngest major division director in Johns
Hopkins history, as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery. Carson's other
surgical innovations have included the first intrauterine procedure to
relieve pressure on the brain of a
hydrocephalic fetal twin, and a
hemispherectomy, in which a young girl suffering from uncontrollable seizures had one half of her brain removed.
In 1987, Carson made medical history by being the first surgeon to successfully separate
conjoined twins (the Binder twins) who had been joined at the back of the head (
craniopagus twins).
The 70-member surgical team, led by Carson, worked for 22 hours. At the
end, the twins were successfully separated and can now survive
independently. Carson recalls:
I looked at that situation. I said, ‘Why is it that
this is such a disaster?’ and it was because they would always
exsanguinate. They would bleed to death, and I said, ‘There's got to be a
way around that. These are modern times.’ This was back in 1987. I was
talking to a friend of mine, who was a cardiothoracic surgeon, who was
the chief of the division, and I said, ‘You guys operate on the heart in
babies, how do you keep them from exsanguinating’ and he says, ‘Well,
we put them in hypothermic arrest.’ I said, ‘Is there any reason that –
if we were doing a set of Siamese twins that were joined at the head –
that we couldn't put them into hypothermic arrest, at the appropriate
time, when we're likely to lose a lot of blood?’ and he said, ‘No way .’
I said, ‘Wow, this is great.’ Then I said, ‘Why am I putting my time
into this? I'm not going to see any Siamese twins.’ So I kind of forgot
about it, and lo and behold, two months later, along came these doctors
from Germany, presenting this case of Siamese twins. And, I was asked
for my opinion, and I then began to explain the techniques that should
be used, and how we would incorporate hypothermic arrest, and everybody
said ‘Wow! That sounds like it might work.’ And, my colleagues and I, a
few of us went over to Germany. We looked at the twins. We actually put
in scalp expanders, and five months later we brought them over and did
the operation, and lo and behold, it worked.
[2]
Awards and honors
Carson has received numerous honors and many awards over the years,
including over 61 honorary doctorate degrees. He was also a member of
the
American Academy of Achievement, the
Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, the
Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, the
Yale Corporation
(the governing body of Yale University), and other prestigious
organizations. He sits on many boards including the Board of Directors
of
Kellogg Company,
Costco Wholesale Corporation, and
America's Promise.
He was also the president and co-founder of the Carson Scholars Fund,
which recognizes young people of all backgrounds for exceptional
academic and humanitarian accomplishments. In 2007, Carson was inducted
into the
Indiana Wesleyan University
Society of World Changers and received an honorary doctorate while
speaking at the university. He returned to IWU the following year when
his friend,
Tony Dungy, was also inducted into the society.
[3] In 2006, he was awarded the
Spingarn Medal from the
NAACP.
[4] On June 19, 2008, Carson received the
Presidential Medal of Freedom from President
George W. Bush. He is a recipient of the
Ford's Theatre Lincoln Medal and the
William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership, and was elected to the
Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the
United States National Academy of Sciences.
Publications and appearances
Carson has written four
bestselling books published by
Zondervan, an international Christian media and publishing company:
Gifted Hands,
The Big Picture,
Take the Risk, and
Think Big.
The first book is an autobiography and two are about his personal
philosophies of success that incorporate hard work and a faith in God;
Carson is a
Seventh-day Adventist. In a debate with
Richard Dawkins,
Francis Collins, and
Daniel Dennett,
Carson stated he doesn't believe in evolution: "I don't believe in
evolution...evolution says that because there are these similarities,
even though we can't specifically connect them, it proves that this is
what happened."
[5]
A video documentary about Carson's life titled
Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story was released by
Zondervan in 1992. Subsequently in 2009, a separate
television movie with the same title premiered on
TNT on February 7, 2009, with Academy Award winner
Cuba Gooding Jr. in the lead role and
Kimberly Elise portraying his mother.
[6]
On February 7, 2013, Dr. Carson was a key speaker at the 2013
National Prayer Breakfast.
[7]
Personal life
In June 2002 Carson was forced to cut back on his public appearances when he was diagnosed with
prostate cancer,
but the cancer was caught in time. He still operates on more than 300
children a year, but has been trying to shorten his days: prior to his
cancer he used to work from 7:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night.
[8]
Carson married Candy Rustin, whom he met at Yale in 1975; she holds
an M.B.A. degree and is an accomplished musician, and both are members
of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Publications
References
External links
