Lib Asks: What Explains The Rise Of An 'Otherwise Boring Doctor' Named Ben Carson?

‘For a party in thrall to a natural showman with little known allegiance to Republican ideology, what explains the rise of an otherwise boring doctor who made a name for himself telling off President Obama at the prayer breakfast in 2013?’

-        Jonathan Capeheart, What Explains The Rise Of Ben Carson In The Age Of Trump, The Washington Post, 1 September 2015

Ben Carson was making a name for himself when Obama was smoking pot, snorting coke, cruising around as Bogart was driving the Choom Gang’s Magical Mystery Machine.

Carson attended Southwestern High School in Southwest Detroit where he excelled in JROTC, which is a program sponsored by the United States Armed Forces. He quickly rose in rank and was offered an appointment to West Point.

Carson graduated from Yale University, where he majored in psychology.

Speaking at his alma mater in 2012

He received his M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School.

He completed his residency in neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Carson was a professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics, and he was the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Carson specialized in traumatic brain injuries, brain and spinal cord tumors, achondroplasia, neurological and congenital disorders, craniosynostosis, epilepsy, and trigeminal neuralgia. Meanwhile, Barack Obama was repeatedly flunking Remedial Corpsman.

At 33, he became the youngest major division director in the hospital’s history as director of pediatric neurosurgery. He was also a co-director of the Johns Hopkins Craniofacial Center.

In 1987, while Barack Obama was taking some time off from his grueling community organiser schedule and spending time with his Luo Tribe in Kenya, Carson successfully separated 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. Both twins survived.

Carson figured in the revival of the hemispherectomy, a drastic surgical procedure in which part or all of one hemisphere of the brain is removed to control severe pediatric epilepsy. He refined the procedure in the 1980s, encouraged by John M. Freeman, and performed it many times.

In 1994, Carson and his wife started the Carson Scholars Fund, which gave scholarships to students in grades 4–11 for “academic excellence and humanitarian qualities”. They founded it after reading that U.S. students ranked second to last in terms of math and science testing among 22 countries. They also noticed that schools awarded athletes with trophies whereas honor students only received “a pin or certificate”.Recipients of the Carson Scholars Fund get a $1,000 scholarship towards their college education. It has awarded 6,700 scholarships. In recognition for his work with the Carson Scholars Fund and other charitable giving throughout his lifetime, Carson was awarded the William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership in 2005.

Carson is a member of the American Academy of Achievement, Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, and the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.

Carson has been awarded 38 honorary doctorate degrees and dozens of national merit citations.

Detroit Public Schools opened the Dr. Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine for students interested in pursuing healthcare careers. The school is partnering with Detroit Receiving Hospital and Michigan State University.

In 2000, he received the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

In 2001, he was elected by the Library of Congress on the occasion of its 200th anniversary to be one of the 89 who earned the designation Library of Congress Living Legend.

In 2004, he was appointed to serve on The President’s Council on Bioethics.

In 2005, Dr. Carson was awarded the William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership.

In 2006, he received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, their highest honor for outstanding achievement.

In 2008, the White House awarded Carson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour.

In 2008, Ford’s Theatre Society awarded Carson the Ford’s Theatre Lincoln Medal, for exemplifying the qualities embodied by President Abraham Lincoln—including courage, integrity, tolerance, equality, and creative expression—through superior achievements.

In 2008, U.S. News & World Report named Dr. Carson as one of 'America’s Best Leaders'.

In 2010, he was elected into the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.

In 2012, Carson was the Influential Marylander Award recipient from The Daily Record, Baltimore’s legal and business newspaper.

In 2014, an American poll conducted by Gallup ranked Carson sixth on a list of the most admired men in the world.

Dr Ben Carson was sooooooooo ‘boring’ and ‘unknown’ before ‘telling off President Obama’ in 2009 that one of his six best-selling books was being made into a movie in 2008 starring Cuba Gooding, Jr, Kimberly Elise, Aunjanue Ellis, and others. When it premiered in February 2009, The Orlando Sentinel wrote: ‘[Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story] is the perfect movie for a country challenged by its new president to do better’ and The Hollywood Reporter, in its review, wrote, ‘The film is so good that a little immodesty is not only acceptable but understandable.’

So contrary to Jonathan Capeheart’s whine, Dr Ben Carson was famous before anyone had ever heard of Barack Hussein Obama. If Obama had been one iota as smart as he claims to be, he would have been paying attention to what a world-renown surgeon said on the issues of insurance, best practices, improving outlooks, etc. Instead, HIRH The Imperious King Know-It-All was too irate because some prestigious, scientific barrier breaker, medical rock star, and genuinely admired around the world African-American doctor had the audacity to explain the problems with Obamacare, as proposed, and how to improve it. Obama would brook no dissension and certainly prohibit anyone pointing out that the Emperor hath no clothes.

  

Benjamin Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan. His mother Sonya had dropped out of school in the third grade, and married when she was only 13. When Benjamin Carson was only eight, his parents divorced, and Mrs. Carson was left to raise Benjamin and his older brother Curtis on her own. She worked at two, sometimes three, jobs at a time to provide for her boys.

Benjamin and his brother fell farther and farther behind in school. In fifth grade, Carson was at the bottom of his class. His classmates called him "dummy" and he developed a violent, uncontrollable temper.

When Mrs. Carson saw Benjamin's failing grades, she determined to turn her sons' lives around. She sharply limited the boys' television watching and refused to let them outside to play until they had finished their homework each day. She required them to read two library books a week and to give her written reports on their reading even though, with her own poor education, she could barely read what they had written.

Within a few weeks, Carson astonished his classmates by identifying rock samples his teacher had brought to class. He recognized them from one of the books he had read. "It was at that moment that I realized I wasn't stupid," he recalled later. Carson continued to amaze his classmates with his newfound knowledge and within a year he was at the top of his class.

The hunger for knowledge had taken hold of him, and he began to read voraciously on all subjects. He determined to become a physician, and he learned to control the violent temper that still threatened his future. After graduating with honors from his high school, he attended Yale University, where he earned a degree in Psychology.

From Yale, he went to the Medical School of the University 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 world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. At age 32, he became the hospital's Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, a position he would hold for the next 29 years. 

Dr. Benjamin Carson's Amazing Speech at the National Prayer Breakfast with Obama Present

Parts of the above can be found in the following wikipedia pages:

Dr Ben Carson

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story