Gifted Hands

Dr. Benjamin Carson was a famous neurosurgeon who first successfully separated a pair of conjoined twins at birth. He later went on to become an author and accomplishing several other achievements such as receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush in 2008. He also went on to hold several leadership positions like professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics, youngest major division director in Johns Hopkins history, and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Craniofacial Center. I have always admired Dr. Carson, and look to him as a role model since seeing the autobiographical film Gifted Hands. I admired it because of the similarities between his adversities and the ones i have faced in my life. Despite their financial adversities his mother never gave up on him and his brother but rather taught them that education was the key. His story is inspirational because he grew up poor most of his life in the ghetto but through hard work and determination went on to accomplish so much. One of his accomplishments was being accepted to Yale University on a full ride scholarship because of his high SAT scores and grades. Furthermore as a young black man he beat the odds and statistics of not ending up in jail but rather exceeding them and succeeding. He also broke the cycle of his father walking out on his mom by getting married to a wonderful wife and having children and teaching them what his father never did. He has also been a role model for me because like him i love working with my hands in performing dissections and hopefully surgeries in the near future. I have dissected an array of specimens such as frogs, pigs, owl feces, starfish, squid, and etc. Moreover, like him i am majoring in psychology because it is such an interesting field in thinking critically with the most important organ being the brain. His story is inspiring in proving that anything is possible with an education no matter the situation. I hope to one day be at least half the surgeon he was when  my opportunity comes.