Ben Carson

Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr. was born on 18 September 1951 in Detroit, Michigan, and was raised by a single mother following his parents' divorce, growing up in poverty and struggling academically as a child before his mother's insistence on limited television and required reading dramatically improved his academic performance, a transformation Carson later credited as foundational to his subsequent achievement.

Carson earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School, before completing his neurosurgery residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where in 1984, at just 33 years old, he became the hospital's director of paediatric neurosurgery, one of the youngest major medical department heads in the country at the time.

Carson achieved international medical recognition in 1987 when he led the surgical team that successfully separated conjoined twins joined at the back of the head, a procedure of extraordinary technical complexity that had never before been performed with both twins surviving, a landmark surgical achievement that established Carson's reputation as one of the world's leading paediatric neurosurgeons.

Carson continued pioneering complex neurosurgical procedures throughout his career at Johns Hopkins, including further conjoined twin separations and innovative techniques for treating brain tumours and epilepsy, and became a widely respected figure in medicine well beyond his early landmark surgery, authoring several books including his memoir Gifted Hands, later adapted into a television film.

Carson transitioned from medicine into conservative political commentary and activism in the 2000s, and ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, a campaign that achieved significant early polling success before ultimately withdrawing from the race, after which he endorsed and was subsequently appointed by President Trump to serve as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021.

Carson's political career and positions have generated significant public debate and controversy, including criticism of specific policy decisions during his HUD tenure and his broader political commentary, reflecting the genuinely divisive reception his political turn received relative to his earlier, largely uncontroversial standing as a celebrated surgeon. He remains a significant figure whose career spans landmark medical achievement and subsequent, more contested political involvement, a trajectory reflecting the distinct and sometimes conflicting public receptions his medical and political careers have separately received.