After graduating with honors from his high school, Benjamin Carson attended Yale University,where he earned a degree in Psychology. From Yale, he went to the Medical School of theUniversity of Michigan, where his interest shifted from psychiatry to neurosurgery. His excellent hand-eye coordination and three-dimensional reasoning skills made him a superior surgeon. After medical school he became a neurosurgery resident at the worldfamous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. At age 32, he became the hospital’s Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery. In 1987, Carson made medical history with an operation to separate a pair of Siamese twins. A 70-member surgical team, led by Dr. Carson, worked for 22 hours. At the end, the twins were successfully separated and can now survive independently.
Carson’s other surgical innovations have included the first intra-uterine procedure to relieve pressure on the brain of a hydrocephalic fetal twin, and a hemispherectomy, in which an infant suffering from uncontrollable seizures has half of its brain removed. In 2008, the White House announced that Benjamin Carson would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Dr. Carson’s books include a memoir, Gifted Hands, and a motivational book, Think Big. He is also the author of two other bestselling books—Take The Risk, and The Big Picture.
