Dr. Ben Carson

                                By: Tyler G

            Ben Carson grew up in two different cities that had a very poor education rate for African Americans. But some how he over came that diversity and became the great doctor he is today.

                              Childhood

            Ben Carson was born in 1951 in Detroit, Michigan and later moved to Boston with his mom and brother because of his parents divorce at the age of 7. He later moved back to Detroit at the age of 10 and attended a private school for a better education. He struggled with his academics because of the atmosphere he was in and being the only African American in his school. With a great boost of will power, he over came diversity and ended his eighth grade year with the highest academic achievement of his whole grade, however as he received his award a teacher gave a very racist speech about how he got the highest academic grade over all the whites in the school. This made his mother transfer him to a public school over on the western side of Detroit. He graduated from the high school with high honors and attended Yale University for Psychology. After he attended school at Yale he went on to work at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

                After high school, Ben was accepted at Yale University for psychology. After four years at Yale, Ben changed his interest and wanted to become a neurosurgeon and attended Michigan Medical School. Once he graduated from Michigan Medical  School He attended Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for his first job.

                Early Career 

        Just a short time after he started working at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Carson became the head of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the age of 33.

            A few years later Dr. Carson and 70 other physicians, surgeons and nurses made medical history with an operation to separate a pair of conjoined twins. These twins were 7 months old and were joined at the head and shared the superior sagittal sinus, which is a vein that is the major path for return blood flow from the brain. Mostly all of the operations on conjoined twins, only one twin survives or neither survives. But after the 22-hour surgery the twins were separated and they both lived.

                          Achievements

       10 years after he separated his first twins in 1987, Dr. Carson went to South Africa where he operated with a 50-member team on the Banda twins that were also joined at the head. The twins shared no major organs but did share blood vessels that flowed into each other’s brain. According to Dr. Carson he performed a 3-D replica of this operation over and over again until he got it right. After the 28-hour surgery the Banda twins were separated and lived to see another day.

            As another 3 years pass another challenge appeared in front of Dr. Carson’s eyes. This time he had to separate the Bijani twins that were also joined at the head. A day before the surgery a reporter asked Dr. Carson why he performed such risky tasks, he replied, “I heard them say, they would rather die then be conjoined for the rest of their lives.” After the short surgery due to them sharing no organs, it was confirmed a success and they both regained their old habits of playing and talking.

            Dr. Carson has also had a success with the challenge of trigeminal neuralgia. Using radio frequency and glycerin rhizotomy, he has saved many lives from this painful disease noted as “ the suicide disease” due to the amount of pain it brings to the victims.

                                               Awards

          Over his career, Dr. Carson has received over 40 honorary doctorate degrees. He is also a member of 3 different societies such as the American Academy of Achievement, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and many other prestigious organizations.

            He is the head of many boards including the Kellogg Company, Costco Wholesale Corporation, Yale Corporation, and America’s Promise, and the one board he made by himself the Carson Scholar fund. The Carson Scholar fund recognizes young people of all backgrounds for exceptional academic and humanitarian accomplishments.

            In 2003 he received an award for being in the Society of World Changers in Chicago. A year later in 2004, Dr. Carson was appointed to the president’s council on Bioethics by President George W. Bush.

            In 2004 the President George W. Bush presented Dr. Carson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

                        Present career

     Dr. Carson has written many books such as Gifted Hands, The Big Picture, and Think Big. He also received the highest civilian award of The Medal of Freedom, for improving the lives of the youth.

            Dr. Carson is one of the most respected leaders in neurosurgery in the whole world due to the effort he puts into his work in improving the lives of others.