Dr. Benjamin Carson biography

Ben Carson biography

NAME: Ben Carson
OCCUPATION: Surgeon, Philanthropist, Journalist
BIRTH DATE: September 18, 1951 (Age: 61)
EDUCATION: Southwestern High School, Yale University, Universty of Michigan Medical School, John Hopkins University
PLACE OF BIRTH: Detroit, Michigan


Synopsis

Ben Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan, on September 18, 1951. His mother, though undereducated herself, pushed her sons to read and to believe in themselves. Carson went from being a poor student to receiving honors and he eventually attended medical school. As a doctor, he became the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at age 33, and became famous for his ground-breaking work separating conjoined twins.

Early Life

Benjamin Solomon Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan, on September 18, 1951. The second son of Sonya and Robert Solomon Carson, Ben grew up in the hardened climate of inner-city Detroit. Ben's mother was raised in Tennessee in a very large family. She dropped out of school in the third grade. With not much hope or prospects in life, she married Baptist minister Robert Carson when she was 13, believing that he would change her life. The couple moved to Detroit, Michigan, and for a time, the marriage was a success. Carson showered his wife with gifts and attention. But over time, Robert Carson changed. Though benevolent, he could also be domineering and erratic. In time, Sonya felt it was best for her sons if she and Robert divorced.

Ben was eight and Curtis, Ben's brother, was 10 when Sonya was left to raise the children on her own. The family was very poor, and to make ends meet Sonya sometimes took on two or three jobs at a time in order to provide for her boys. Most of the jobs she had were as a domestic servant. There were occasions when her boys wouldn't see her for days at a time, because she would go to work at 5:00 AM and come home around 11:00 PM, going from one job to the next. She was frugal with the family's finances, cleaning and patching clothes from the Goodwill in order to dress the boys. The family would also go to local farmers and offer to pick corn or other vegetables in exchange for a portion of the yield. She would then can the produce for the kids' meals. Her actions, and the way she managed the family, proved to be a tremendous influence on Ben and Curtis.

Sonya also taught her boys that anything was possible. By his recollection many years later, Ben Carson had thoughts of a career in medicine, though it was more of a fantasy many young children harbor as they grow up. Because his family was on medical assistance, they would have to wait for hours to be seen by one of the interns at the hospital. Ben would listen to the pulse of the hospital as doctors and nurses went about their routines. Occasionally, there'd be an emergency and he could hear in people's voices and in their quick movements the pace and emotions rise to meet the challenge. He'd hear the PA system call for a "Dr. Jones" and fantasized that one day they'd be calling for a "Dr. Carson."

Both Ben and his brother experienced difficulty in school. Ben fell to the bottom of his class, and became the object of ridicule by his classmates. He developed a violent and uncontrollable temper, and was known to attack other children at the slightest provocation.

The poverty he lived in and the difficult times he experienced in school seem to exacerbate the anger and rage.

Determined to turn her sons around, Sonya limited their TV time to just a few select programs and refused to let them go outside to play until they'd finished their homework. She was criticized for this by her friends,who said her boys would grow up to hate her. But she was determined that her sons would have greater opportunities than she did. She required them to read two library books a week and give her written reports, even though with her poor education she could barely read them. She would take the papers and review them, scanning over the words and turning pages. Then she would place a checkmark at the top of the page showing her approval.

At first, Ben resented the strict regimen. While his friends were playing outside, he was stuck in the house, forced to read a book or do his homework. But after several weeks of his mother's unrelenting position, he began to find enjoyment in reading. Being poor, there wasn't much opportunity to go anywhere. But between the covers of a book he could go anyplace, be anybody, and do anything. Ben began to learn how to use his imagination and found it more enjoyable than watching television. This attraction to reading soon led to a strong desire to learn more. Carson read books on all types of subjects and found connections between them. He saw himself as the central character of what he was reading, even if it was a technical book or an encyclopedia. He read about people in laboratories, pouring chemicals into a beaker or flask, or discovering galaxies, or peering into a microscope. He began to see himself differently, different than the other kids in his neighborhood who only wanted to get out of school, get some nice clothes, and a nice car. He saw that he could become the scientist or physician he had dreamed about. Staying focused on this vision of his future helped him get through some of the more difficult times.

Within a year, Ben Carson was amazing his teachers and classmates with his improvement. The childrens' books he read while he was confined to quarters now had relevancy in school. He was able to recall facts and examples from the books and relate them to what he was learning in school. In 5th grade, Ben astonished everyone by indentifying rock samples his teacher had brought to school. As he recalled several years later, he began to realize that he wasn't stupid. Within a year he was at the top of his class, and the hunger for knowledge had taken hold of him. It wasn't easy in the predominantly all-white school, though. After Ben received a certificate of achievement at the semester break, one of the school's teachers berated the white students for letting a black student get ahead of them academically.

Despite his academic successes, Ben Carson still had a raging temper that translated into violent behavior. One time he tried to hit is mother with a hammer because she disagreed with his choice of clothes.

Another time, he inflicted a major head injury on a classmate in a dispute over a locker. In a final incident, Ben nearly stabbed to death a friend after arguing over a choice of radio stations. The only thing that prevented a tragic occurrence was the knife blade broke on the friend's belt buckle. Not knowing the extent of his friend's injury, Ben ran home and locked himself in the bathroom with a Bible. Terrified by his own actions, he started praying, asking God to help him find a way to deal with his temper. He found salvation in the book of Proverbs in a passage that went, "Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city."

Ben began to realize that much of his anger stemmed from putting himself in the center of everything. Anytime anything happened that was not to his liking, he internalized it and made it his problem. Once he took himself out of the equation, he could see that not everything was directed at him and that he wasn't the only one with troubles. He began to see things from other points of view. He soon realized he could control his anger, rather than it controlling him. He realized his future depended on the choices he made and the degree of energy he put into his life. Seeing that living in the inner city was only temporary, Carson believed he had the full power to change his situation.

Ben also had several teachers along the way who expressed a strong interest in his success. After he demonstrated his proficient knowledge of rocks in his 5th grade class, his teacher asked Ben to come by the school's lab after classes ended for the day. There Ben found squirrels to feed and a tarantula to observe. He discovered the wonders of using a microscope to study water specimens, and learned about paramecium and amoebas. Later, at Southwestern High School in inner-city Detroit, his science teachers recognized his intellectual abilities and mentored him. Other teachers helped him to stay focused when outside influences pulled him off course.

After Ben graduated with honors from high school, he knew he wanted to pursue a medical career. But because his mother was not financially well off, Carson had to work through most of his time in college. The automobile industry was facing a downturn in Detroit during the 1970s, making it tough to get a summer job. But Carson was determined to achieve his goals. He knocked on doors looking for summer work and usually, through persistence, was able to obtain one. From this work, and a scholarship, he attended Yale University and earned a B.A. degree in psychology.

Continued.......
http://www.biography.com/people/ben-carson-475422?page=3

Ben Carson Quotes


“Success is determined not by whether or not you face obstacles, but by your reaction to them. And if you look at these obstacles as a containing fence, they become your excuse for failure. If you look at them as a hurdle, each one strengthens you for the next.”
― Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

“Do your best and let God do the rest.”
― Ben Carson

“Happiness doesn't result from what we get, but from what we give.”
― Ben Carson

“If you hear how wonderful you are often enough, you begin to believe it, no matter how you try to resist it.”
― Ben Carson

“God has given us more than fourteen billion cells and connections in our brain. Why would God give us such a complex organ system unless he expects us to use it?”
― Ben Carson

“To THINK BIG and to use our talents doesn't mean we won't have difficulties along the way. We will--we all do. If we choose to see the obstacles in our path as barriers, we stop trying. "We can't win," we moan. "They won't let us win.”
― Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

“Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.”
― Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

“If we recognize our talents and use them appropriately, and choose a field that uses those talents, we will rise to the top of our field.”
― Ben Carson

“When I treat other people with kindness and love, it is part of my way of paying my debt to God and the world for the privilege of living on this planet.”
― Ben Carson, Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

“It does not matter where we come from or what we look like. If we recognize our abilities, are willing to learn and to use what we know in helping others, we will always have a place in the world.”
― Ben Carson, Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

“Knowledge is the key that unlocks all the doors. You can be green-skinned with yellow polka dots and come from Mars, but if you have knowledge that people need instead of beating you, they'll beat a path to your door.”
― Ben Carson, Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

“Anyone who can't learn from other people's mistakes simply can't learn, and that;s all there is to it. There is value in the wrong way of doing things. The knowledge gained from errors contributes to our knowledge base.”
― Ben Carson, Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

“...I became acutely aware of an unusual ability--a divine gift, I believe--of extraordinary eye and hand coordination. It’s my belief that God gives us all gifts, special abilities that we have the privilege of developing to help us serve Him and humanity. And the gift of eye and hand coordination has been an invaluable asset in surgery. This gift goes beyond eye-hand coordination, encompassing the ability to understand physical relationships, to think in three dimensions. Good surgeons must understand the consequences of each action, for they’re often not able to see what’s happening to see on the other side of the area in which the area they’re actually working.”
― Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

“First, we cannot overload the human brain. This divinely created brain has fourteen billion cells. If used to the maximum, this human computer inside our heads could contain all the knowledge of humanity from the beginning of the world to the present and still have room left over. Second, not only can we not overload our brain - we also know that our brain retains everything. I often use saying that "The brain acquires everything that we encounter." The difficulty does not come with the input of information, but getting it out. Sometimes we "file" information randomly of little importance, and it confuses us.”
― Ben Carson, Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

“People are simply not willing to look at their problems honestly and admit that they have problems.”
― Ben Carson, Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

“If we would spend on education half the amount of money that we currently lavish on sports and entertainment, we could provide complete and free education for every student in this country.”
― Ben Carson, Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

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http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/11100.Ben_Carson

day dreamer wrote:i like this man he has a lot of wisdom

I like him very much as well. His common sense voice of reason is a breath of fresh air and I would love to see him run for president as far as what I know about him at this point. A Carson/Rubio ticket sounds good to me. I place Carson at the head of the ticket because he has more wisdom at this juncture than Rubio.

Wow,even backwards Wow.What a testamoniy,the true freshness of this person just might wake up those on the hill.Thanks BamaDiva.