Tag: surgery

From the O.R. to the Oval Office- 3 Docs Who Ran- Part 2

This concludes a two part series about physicians who ran for U.S. President in 2016.

Updated August 6, 2026
Here is the link to Part 1

Benjamin Carson, M.D., Republican

These notes about Dr. Carson are taken from his 1992 autobiography

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
  1. Dr. Carson’s mother, Sonya, one of 24 children,  married at age 13 ;her husband abandoned her when Dr. Carson and his brother were young boys. An uneducated illiterate woman, she taught herself to read, and required her sons to read books weekly.
  2. While he was growing up, his family depended on food stamps to have enough to eat.
  3. At age 8, after hearing a missionary doctor speak at his church, he decided to become a physician.
  4. He had such poor vision, he was almost legally blind. His grades improved when he started wearing glasses.
  5. As a teenager, he had such a quick and fiery temper, her feared he might kill someone.
  6. Both he and his brother were in JROTC while in high school; his brother served in the Navy during the Vietnam War.
  7. In high school he played clarinet and developed a love of classical music, something he would share with his future wife Candy.
  8. He chose to attend Yale over Harvard, because Yale beat Harvard in the GE College Bowl television program.
  9. During college he worked at the Ford Auto plant and at Chrysler.
  10. He and Candy lived in Australia for one year so he could train in neurosurgery there- and his first child was born in Australia that year.
  11. His third child was born at home- and he did the unplanned, quick delivery while his mother dialed 911 for help.

Neurosurgical Notes

Neurosurgery is the surgical specialty that deals with the nervous system, including the brain and spinal cord. Long before Dr. Carson became involved in politics, he was known for his pioneering work in brain surgery. He discusses this work in his autobiography, which was also made into a movie of the same name. In the movie Cuba Gooding Jr. played Dr. Carson.

Dr. Carson specialized in two difficult and dangerous types of surgeries.

In hemispherectomy  half of the brain is surgically removed as a treatment for severe, intractable seizures. It is only used as a last resort, is not always successful and can cause paralysis on one side of the body. Dr.Carson was known as an expert in this surgery.

Conjoined or Siamese twins joined at the head are rare, occurring in 1 in 2 million births.

“In 1987, Carson attracted international attention by performing a surgery to separate 7-month-old occipital craniopagus twins in Germany.

Patrick and Benjamin Binder were born joined at the head. Their parents contacted Carson, who went to Germany to consult with the family and the boys’ doctors. Because the boys were joined at the back of the head, and because they had separate brains, he felt the operation could be performed successfully.

Gifted Hands movie
Gifted Hands- The Ben Carson Story movie version starring Cuba Gooding Jr.

Randall “Rand” Paul, M.D., Republican

“Paul officially announced his presidential candidacy on April 7, 2015. Within a day of his announcement, Paul raised $1 million.[221]Paul announced the suspension of his presidential campaign on February 3, 2016, shortly after the Iowa caucus, where he finished in fifth place.[233]

Paul supports repealing the Affordable Care Act[378] and opposes universal health care, having once equated it to slavery.[379] Paul says he instead favors expanding health savings accounts and providing a $5000 tax credit, allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines, and allowing individuals and small businesses to pool together to purchase insurance. His plan would provide a two-year window during which people with pre-existing conditions could not be denied coverage.[380][381][382]

Paul announced on March 22, 2020, that he had tested positive for COVID-19 amid the ongoing pandemic of the disease. He was the first member of the United States Senate to test positive.[414][415] Paul received bipartisan criticism from his Senate colleagues after it was discovered that he attended Senate lunches and used the Senate gym while awaiting his test results; he defended his actions because he had no symptoms of the illness and believed it was “highly unlikely” he was sick.[416] On April 7, 2020, Paul announced his recovery.[417]“

source:Wikipedia,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_Paul

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