Ben Carson Biography 452kh

Ben Carson Benjamin Solomon "Ben" Carson, Sr, is a director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland from 1984 until his retirement in 2013. Among his achievements as a surgeon were separating coned twins and developing 1 ahemispherectomy technique for controlling seizures. Both achievements were recognized in 2008 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Sonya (née Copeland) and Robert Solomon Carson, a minister and later Cadillac factory worker. Both parents came from large families in rural Georgia and were living in rural Tennessee when they met and married. Carson's mother was only 13 when she married Carson's father, who was 28. Carson's mother subsequently discovered her husband had another family, for which Carson's father eventually abandoned her. Following his parents' divorce, when Carson was eight years old, both he and his older brother, Curtis, were raised by their mother, who worked two or three jobs at a time, usually as a domestic servant. They were poor, and his mother occasionally relied on food stamps and other government assistance. In his book Gifted Hands, Carson relates that, in his youth, he had a violent temper. He said he once tried to hit his mother over the head with a hammer over a clothing dispute and, while in the ninth grade, he attempted to stab a friend who had changed the station on the radio; the blade broke in his friend's belt buckle. After this incident, Carson said that he began reading the Book of Proverbs and applying verses on anger. As a result, Carson states he "never had another problem with temper". Some of his narratives, about his childhood violence and poverty, were challenged during Carson's campaign in 2015. For example, nine friends, classmates and neighbors who grew up with Carson, told CNN in 2015 they did not the anger or violence Carson has described; all expressed surprise about the incidents that Carson said had occurred. 1 ahemispherectomy: Is a neurosurgical procedure that involves the removal or disabling a cerebral hemisphere.

Carson attended Southwestern High School in Southwest Detroit, where he participated in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), a program sponsored by the United States Armed Forces, and reached the rank of cadet colonel. Carson does not say in his books whether he applied for and received a college student deferment during the Vietnam War. He does say that his older brother, who was a student at the University of Michigan, received a low number in the first draft lottery in 1969 and enlisted in the Navy for four years instead of being drafted, whereas he received a high number (333) in the second draft lottery in 1970. Carson said he would have readily accepted his responsibility to fight had he been drafted, but he "identified strongly with the antiwar protesters and the revolutionaries" and enthusiastically voted for antiwar Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972. In his book, America the Beautiful (2012), Carson said: "The Vietnam War was, in retrospect, not a noble conflict. It brought shame to our nation because of both the outcome and the cause. In 1973, Carson graduated from Yale University, where he majored in psychology. He received his M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1977. One of his best known works as neurosurgeons was the separation of Siamese twins. In 1987, he became part of medical history as the first surgeon to successfully separate Siamese twins (the binder twins) were together at the back of the head (craniopagus twins). All operations to separate coned twins in this case have failed, resulting in the death of one twin or both. Carson agreed to perform the operation. The 50 of the surgical team, led by Carson, worked for 22 hours. In the end, the twins were separated successfully and can now survive independently. According to an interview to a US media, he said: “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 ed 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." 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 , 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

. 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”.