Dr. Benjamin Carson, a Yale trustee who rose from a disadvantaged childhood to become a world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon, will address the youth of New Haven at a free event open to the public on Saturday, April 13, 3 p.m., at Yale University’s Woolsey Hall, corner of Grove and College streets.
A 1973 graduate of Yale College, Carson performs miraculous brain surgery in the operating room and inspires thousands around the country through his riveting talks and books. Carson heads pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and is professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Parents are encouraged to bring their children to hear Carson’s inspiring success story. A free copy of Carson’s autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” will be offered to all schoolchildren who attend. His scholarship fund helps disadvantaged youth achieve their educational goals.
“He is a model to all the youth of today,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson has said of Carson. Barbara Walters of ABC’s “20-20” program has said, “He works miracles on children others have written off as hopeless.”
After receiving his M.D. in 1977 from the University of Michigan, he was a neurosurgery resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital and was named its director of pediatric neurosurgery in 1984. Carson and his colleagues have developed a significant craniofacial program in which children with congenital deformities undergo combined neurosurgical and plastic surgical reconstruction.
Through his television appearances, speaking engagements and books, he urges all young people to use their intellectual potential to achieve success. He has been recognized with more than twenty honorary degrees from colleges and universities nationwide, including Yale in 1996. He was elected an Alumni Fellow of the Yale Corporation, Yale’s governing board, in 1997.
