Ben Carson

Ben Carson went from a childhood of poverty to Chief of Brain Surgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.

Learn how being organized can help lead to a successful career.

"If you put a ship to sea without a destination, it is going nowhere. You absolutely have to define where you want to go, if you want to get anywhere. People spend more time planning a birthday party than their lives."
Ben Carson

Multimedia: Dr. Ben Carson shares his career story.

Spotlight: Health

Teacher Resources

Extra is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites.

Dr. Ben Carson's
Scholarship Fund

Considering a career in medicine...

When you were a teen what did you want to be?
I wanted to be a doctor. I first became interested after listening to missionary stories in church. The noblest people in the world are missionary doctors, going away to foreign lands to bring not only physical healing, but also mental and spiritual healing to people. This is the ultimate service a person can provide.

But people said being a doctor would take so long that I would be an old man when I finished. I would respond, "When I finish I will be as old as you are." Time is an advantage. Never not tackle something because you feel it will take too long or you don't have the time. Time is on your side. But growing up in dire poverty, by the age of 13 I decided I would rather be rich, so a missionary doctor was out.

Describe your typical work day...
On average, I have surgery 4 out of 5 days a week. In addition, I make rounds and visit patients, mostly post-surgical patients. I do checkups, make treatment decisions and write for academic medical journals.

I also instruct residents, interns and nurses. Plus, I teach residents and students, give conferences, do lab research, and consult on cases sent from all over the world.

What do you find most challenging about your job?
Neurosurgery is incredibly difficult! Most frustrating and challenging is trying to provide patient care in managed care systems, which are gauged to cost — instead of patients.

I would like to see more energy in medicine pushed away from administration, and toward actual providing of care. Out of the dollar, 19 cents goes to the doctor and 39 cents to administration.

What is the neatest part of the brain?
The frontal lobes, where you do all your rational thought processing. Frontal lobes are used to extract information from the past and present. If we couple that with medial temporal lobes, which retain all the information we have ever seen or heard, it makes us absolutely phenomenal.

We have the ability to integrate past and present information and make a plan. If you stimulate the medial temporal lobes with an electrode you can dictate a book you read years ago. The human brain can process 2 million bits of information per second. There's no computer that even comes close.

What advice would you give to students today on setting and reaching their goals?
If you put a ship to sea without a destination, it is going nowhere. You absolutely have to define where you want to go, if you want to get anywhere. People spend more time planning a birthday party than their lives. Start making specific plans, "What do I want to be at the end this year? At the end of five years? At the end of 10 years?" Under each write out steps to accomplish your goal.

Every week review the list. Make sure to know what you're good at. Ask people who know you well, "What do you think I am good at?"- like parents and teachers. Ask yourself in what areas or things have I always done well? Try to match this with your goals and desires.

What advice would give to minority teens?
Define your goals and determine how you are going to get there! My mother said, "If you walk into an auditorium full of racist, bigoted people, you don't have the problem. Because when you walk in, they're going to cringe and wonder if you're going to sit next to them, whereas you can go sit anywhere you want." If they want to have a heart attack that is fine, you have better things to do.

Recognize that everyone has hurdles in life. Success is determined by how you handle those hurdles. If you say "Ah, it is a hurdle, I will jump over this, or go under or around, pretty soon you start looking for hurdles to jump over."

-- interview conducted September 1999