Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

During the neurology rotation of his clinical year at medical school, Carson invents a way to locate more easily the foramen ovale, the opening at the base of the skull. At first reticent, he tells his professors his method, winning their praise. During the second rotation of his fourth year, he realizes that he knows “more about neurosurgery than the interns and junior residents,” and it is not long before they realize it, too, and give Carson the beeper so he can answer the calls that they should be covering (110). Again, he “did it his way” and “didn’t tell” his professors what was going on (111).

Carson had planed to stay at Michigan for his internship and residency until he overhears a conversation revealing that the chairman of the neurosurgery department is about to leave. Realizing that this could upset the operation of the department for years, Carson instead applies for an internship at Johns Hopkins, even though it averages one hundred twenty-five applications for only two neurosurgery resident positions. Carson is invited for an interview with the head of the neurosurgery training program. After the main questions have been addressed in the interview, the doctor mentions having been at a concert the night before. Carson is able to confirm that he, too, saw the concert. They end up discussing classical music for about an hour. Carson is accepted, and although the interviewer does not say it, Carson “is convinced that [his] interest in classical music was a decisive factor” (115). This confirms his opinion that “no knowledge is ever wasted” (116).

Turning to his family life, Carson reveals that he and Candy married in 1975 after Candy’s graduation from Yale. During their first years in Baltimore, Candy earns a master’s degree in business and goes to work in trust administration, while Carson works hard as a resident, being sure to acknowledge the “common people,” such as the aides and ward clerks, who had a great deal to teach him (118).

Carson recounts being mistaken for an orderly by a nurse unused to seeing Black interns and the prejudice from “a few White patients who didn’t want a Black doctor,” which Carson did not know about at the time, because Dr. Long, the chairman of the neurosurgery department, told the patients they could see Dr. Carson or leave (121). Carson briefly addresses a conflict with one of the chief residents he experienced as an intern, and then goes on to tell that at the end of his internship, there are five in his cohort, as well as one hundred twenty-five outside applications for a single neurosurgery residency slot. Carson decides that he is willing to give up the position at Johns Hopkins if he can find another school that will allow him to opt out of the second of two required years of general surgery so he can go straight to neurosurgery. Dr. Long calls him in and invites him to do just that—at Johns Hopkins, and Carson accepts.

Carson’s residency at Johns Hopkins runs from 1978 to 1982. His senior residency at Baltimore City Hospital provides a memorable story. A man whose head had been beaten is brought in while nearly all the faculty are away at a meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in Boston, and Carson is faced with the choice of doing nothing for the already comatose patient or performing a lobectomy, a procedure he had never done. After arguing with himself, based on the fact that the man would die if nothing was done, Carson goes ahead, and shortly after the operation, the man awakes, behaving normally and experiencing no “ongoing problems” (127). Carson also mentions his fifth-year research, which faced challenges of expense, consistency, and finding a model large enough for imaging and surgery. New Zealand white rabbits meet his criteria, and he creates a model of brain tumors that was still being used when the book was written (1990), and wins the Resident of the Year Award. He then reviews several procedures that he learned to perform in his year of chief residency, and the chapter ends with the end of his residency.

At first, Carson rejects his colleague’s suggestion of a year as a senior registrar in Perth, Western Australia, because Carson believes apartheid is law in Australia, but after Candy does research and discovers that the Whites-only policy was abolished in 1968, the couple decides to go, despite the fact that Candy is pregnant and had suffered a miscarriage in 1981. Upon accepting the position, and having used all their money to purchase their one-way airfare, they learn that Carson will be receiving a $65,000 salary, far more than he had ever made. They leave for Australia in June 1983 with some trepidation, because of the distance and unbreakable commitment, but they are welcomed warmly, especially by the Seventh-day Adventist community.

While Candy becomes involved in the local symphony and does a turn as a professional violinist, Carson has the opportunity to do far more surgery than he could have done in any other position, becoming “the local expert in the field,” and dealing with “a lot of tough cases, some absolutely spectacular” (140). In September 1983, their first son is born. They return to the States in summer 1984, with Carson wondering about his next position. He is advised by the chief of surgery at Provident Hospital, an institution that focuses on services for Blacks, that Johns Hopkins is “steeped in racism” and that Carson should come to them instead (141). But shortly after their return, the chief of pediatric neurology at Johns Hopkins leaves for a position at Brown, and Dr. Long proposes Carson fill the position. Unanimously approved by the board, Carson, at thirty-three, becomes the new chief. While Carson cannot believe his good fortune, some patients cannot believe that someone his age had attained that position. He reports more negativity from older Black patients. “They couldn’t believe that I was chief of pediatric neurosurgery. Or if I was, that I had earned my position” (144), but those problems subside as his reputation grows.