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In the middle of separating Siamese twins in South Africa in 1997, Dr. Ben Carson prayed that God would take over the operation. With only a scalpel in hand, he began separating the intricate blood vessels found in the little boys' joined heads.

Despite his exhaustion, a steadiness returned to his hands. He felt calm, watching his hands move as if someone were actually performing the operation through him. (See sidebar on page 26 - Printcopy only.) He credits this miraculous intervention to the fervent prayers of people worldwide.

	"I strongly believe in Proverbs 16:3—'Commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established.' "

Ben's hands become an answer to prayer daily as he handles a caseload of 400 to 500 patients each year at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. But the world's foremost pediatric neurosurgeon doesn't let it go to his head.

"I strongly believe in Proverbs 16:3—'Commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established.' I don't for one moment, when I sit down and look at my career and see all these incredible things that have happened, believe that I'm really that good," he says. "I constantly ask the Lord to give me wisdom to know what to do. … And he does."

For instance, a colleague recently asked Ben if a patient should come to the hospital to be checked out. The other physician explained that the patient seemed to be okay, but Ben got a feeling that the patient should go to the emergency room immediately. It turned out that the patient had an abscess in the brain. Ben, who prays before every operation, says the Lord often leads him in such matters. "It's almost like a sixth sense."

A calm, soft-spoken man, 47-year-old Ben refuses to shine the spotlight on himself. He would rather give credit to God and the positive influences of his mother and family.

Get thee to a library
In fifth grade, Ben was the class "dummy." Ben's mother, who had only a third-grade education, was raising him and his brother Curtis (now an engineer in Indiana) without their father, who abandoned the family because he was leading a double life with another wife and family. If that weren't enough, Ben had an explosive temper—he once tried to punch his mother when he didn't like the clothes she'd picked out for him.

Surprisingly, his mother, Sonya, who was working multiple jobs at the time, helped solve his education problems. Upset by both sons' poor performance at school, she gave an ultimatum: they both had to write two book reports a week for her. Ben became well-acquainted with the Detroit Public Library, reading about animals, plants, and rocks. Though Sonya was unable to actually read her sons' reports, the plan worked. Ben rose to the top of his class by the end of the seventh grade.

When it came to his anger, God had to solve that one. Ben had become a Christian at age 8, but his temper still flared out of control. In the ninth grade, he tried to stab a classmate, but providentially the boy's belt buckle got in the way. Deeply distressed by what he had done, Ben locked himself in a bathroom for hours, reading Proverbs and praying. The Lord heard his cries for deliverance; Ben's temper has been under control since then. The hymn, "Jesus Is All the World to Me," is a balm whenever he feels irritated.

Following a stellar high school career, Ben earned a scholarship to Yale, where he studied psychology, graduating in 1973. He met his wife Candy during his junior year. Sharing a love of games, classical music, and corny jokes, they were married on July 6, 1975, while Ben was attending the University of Michigan School of Medicine.

	Dr. Carson has a superior ability to think in 3-D images, critical when working on the brain, which he likens to "a hardboiled egg with oatmeal inside."

From mediocre grades to brain surgery
At the School of Medicine, Ben faced two dilemmas. He initially studied to become a psychiatrist. But as he got deeper into his major, he realized that the profession was not what he thought it was.

"My concepts had been derived largely from television," he says.

Looking at his options, he didn't want to backtrack, wasting his years spent studying the brain. So Ben prayed and considered his situation. He knew he had excellent hand-eye coordination; he was a champion foosball (table soccer) player at Yale. In addition, he had a superior ability to manipulate spatial relationships in his mind (thinking in 3-D images), critical when working on the brain, which he likens in consistency to "a hard-boiled egg with oatmeal mixed inside." And he considered himself to be a careful person, another vital asset if you're in a position to work on a person's most important body part.

"Now, what would be something that would take advantage of those things? Brain surgery! That's a no-brainer," he says.

If his new goal was brain surgery, Ben knew his grades wouldn't cut it. He had to get them up. A counselor suggested medical school was too much for him. But with a history of overcoming obstacles, Ben didn't let the advice get him down.

"I took it as [the counselor's] not knowing what he was talking about," Ben says. "I never entertained even for a split second the possibility that he might be right." Still, his mediocre academic performance had to change.

"I went back to my room and I prayed," Ben recalls. "And I said, 'Lord, both you and I know I'm not dumb. So obviously there's some problem we need to figure out.'"

Once again, Ben analyzed the situation. He realized that he didn't get much out of classroom lectures, so he began to spend the time he would spend in class poring over the textbooks. Remembering the turnaround he had made academically in junior high, thanks to reading, he knew this was the key. Sure enough, his grades dramatically improved in medical school.

Following his 1977 graduation from Michigan, Ben became a resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. After finishing his residency in 1983, he and his wife lived in Australia for a year. There, Ben gained valuable hands-on operating experience at a medical center in Perth.

The surgeon touches souls
The Carsons, with their newborn first son Murray, returned to the United States and Johns Hopkins in 1984. That year, at the age of 33, Ben was appointed head of the hospital's pediatric neurosurgery department.

As the difficult cases began coming his way, Ben passed the tests, becoming famous for performing hemispherectomies, a radical operation in which half the brain is removed in order to manage severe seizures. Because young children's brains are still developing, the part of the brain remaining can adapt to function as a whole brain to meet the body's needs.

He performed his first hemispherectomy on a four-year-old girl named Maranda Francisco, who had been having severe seizures since she was 18 months old. Before Ben operated, she was having seizures up to 100 times a day. Minutes after the surgery, as they rolled her out on a gurney, she told her parents she loved them, surprising and delighting the surgical team.

"We had hoped for recovery. But none of us had considered that she could be so alert so quickly," he writes in his first book, Gifted Hands. "Silently I thanked God for restoring life to this beautiful little girl. I caught my breath in amazement as the significance of their conversation reached my brain. Maranda had opened her eyes. She recognized her parents. She was talking, hearing, thinking, responding."

Ben gained more nationwide acclaim in 1987 when he successfully separated the Binder twins, who were joined at the head. An operation to separate Siamese twins in South Africa in 1994 was not successful, as both twins died because they were completely symbiotic, sharing heart and kidney functions.

Ben says he never felt lower than he did on the plane ride back home. Frustrated, confused, and angry, he had questions for God: "Why did you get me involved in a situation like this where there was never any possibility for success? Why did you let me spend so much valuable time and energy in something that could not possibly work out?"

For two and a half years he asked, Why? But in late 1997, he returned to South Africa, to the same hospital, and successfully separated twins joined at the head, confirming his reputation and winning him praise from around the world.

The stress of such delicate surgery involving children could easily break Ben down. When he's operating his adrenaline is racing and 10 hours seems more like 10 minutes, so he tries to keep things light—playing classical music, especially Bach, and talking sports. He relies on his surgical teams and considers himself the conductor of a fine orchestra in the OR rather than a dictator.

A mission and a message
When Ben was growing up, he enjoyed going to church and hearing guest missionary doctors tell about their work in faraway places. He always thought it would be great to have that job—healing bodies and speaking the gospel. In a way, thanks to media attention, Ben has been able to fulfill that boyhood dream. He has been able to share the Good News and a "can-do" attitude with millions of people—corporate executives, young leaders, and inner-city children. Anytime he's invited to speak, he tries to mention God.

"Through all the lectures and books and interviews I've done, I'm probably able to reach a lot more people than I ever would have as a missionary doctor," the three-time book author says. "That's the power of God. Basically, the neurosurgery is a platform from which to reach out and do other things."

Ben says all Christians should see their work as an opportunity to be a witness. He thought neurosurgery wouldn't offer him a chance to develop relationships with people, because he would have to be in surgery so often, but the Lord provided a way.

At one point, Ben prayed: "Lord, it seems to me like you've given me talent in this particular area (neurosurgery). So I suspect you can probably figure out how I could parlay this into a much broader work in which I could do humanitarian things. It's not what's traditionally done in neurosurgery, but, then again, you're in charge of everything. So you could figure out how to do it." And he did.

Let's reward learning, too
Whenever Ben would have the opportunity to tell his story at a school, he'd often pass the trophy case filled with honors for athletic achievements. Why can't the students who've been successful academically be rewarded, too? he wondered, remembering all the effort he'd put into his studies. With money from his speaking engagements and book sales, he and Candy have chosen to promote education through a scholarship fund. It's a way to get priorities straight since "we're totally exalting the wrong thing in our society," he says.

Since 1996, more than 70 students in Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, D.C., schools have received $1,000 scholarships through the Carson Scholars Fund, which will soon expand to North Carolina. The money is invested in a trust fund until the student enrolls in a four-year college or university. "They can win in multiple years, so they can accumulate a significant amount of money," Ben says. "They lose the award if their GPA declines significantly."

To qualify, students must be in grades four through twelve, demonstrate superior academic potential, and be involved in community or humanitarian activities. They must also receive recommendations from adult leaders and write an essay.

Candy also feels education should be one of America's top priorities. She says U.S. students continue to rank near the bottom in international science tests. "We've got to do something about that, because otherwise, when our kids come up head-to-head against kids from other countries, we'll be up the creek with no paddle," she says.

Jennifer Larkin, a Westminster, Maryland, resident received a $1,000 award in 1997, while a sophomore in high school. She graduated a year early and used the money toward her first year's tuition and books at Tennessee Temple University.

"Dr. Carson has been an excellent role model and has such a great testimony, it's an honor to be a Carson scholar," says Larkin, whose involvement with a Bible study group and student government helped her earn the scholarship.

Home is where the fun is
Family life for the Carsons—Ben, Candy, their three sons, and Ben's mother Sonya, who lives with them—is hectic. The boys, Murray, 15, B.J., 13, and Rhoeyce, 12, are excellent students and serious musicians. (Candy and her sons comprise a string quartet—the Carson Four, sometimes performing at the functions where Ben speaks). Ben is up early and tries to be home between eight and nine at night. The family waits to have dinner until he arrives.

Their schedules are so packed, that Ben sometimes will have his secretaries reserve certain weekends just for family time. Family is a high priority to him, and he wants to be there for his boys. "As long as it's something that's important to you, then you find time for it," Ben says.

Playing pool or word games or charades, the Carsons enjoy each other's company. In their household, laughter is wonderful medicine, aided by Ben and Candy's ever-growing repertoire of corny jokes. And for many years, the two have asked their sons at mealtime to share a new fact they've learned, one way to spark a rousing conversation.

Ben says he's blessed with the ability to switch from a work mode to home life easily. He seldom talks about work at home.

"When I leave the hospital, I leave the work. Fortunately the Lord has blessed me with a shut-off valve," Ben says. "If I worried about all the stuff that was going on … I'd be a wreck. I come home, we have dinner and play pool or whatever, and I forget about what's going on at work."

Balancing a strong marriage, a healthy family, and a demanding career is no easy task. But the motto Ben has for the operating room works well for all areas of his life: "You do your best and let God do the rest."

A Christian Reader original article.

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