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Cover of Gifted Hands by Ben Carson

Gifted Hands

  • 232 pages · about 4 hours
  • First published 1990
  • 11 editions

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1 About this book

In 1987, Dr. Benjamin Carson gained worldwide recognition for his part in the first successful separation of Siamese twins joined at the back of the head. The extremely complex and delicate operation, five months in the planning and twenty-two hours in the execution, involved a surgical plan that Carson helped initiate.

Carson pioneered again in a rare procedure known as hemispherectomy, giving children without hope a second chance at life through a daring operation in which he literally removed one half of their brain. But such breakthroughs aren't unusual for Ben Carson. He's been beating the odds since he was a child.

Raised in inner-city Detroit by a mother with a third grade education, Ben lacked motivation. He had terrible grades. And a pathological temper threatened to put him in jail. But Sonya Carson convinced her son that he could make something of his life, even though everything around him said otherwise.

Good for readers who want: a true life story and brain science.

  • Biography & autobiography
  • Biography
  • Autobiography
  • Neurosciences
  • Surgeons, biography
  • African americans, biography
  • Neurosurgeons
  • Physicians

2 About Ben Carson

Born 1951

Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr. (born September 18, 1951) is an American retired neurosurgeon, academic, author, and government official serving as the National Nutrition Advisor at the Department of Agriculture since 2025. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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