Carson attended
Southwestern High School in
Southwest Detroit where he excelled in
JROTC, which is a program sponsored by the
United States Armed Forces. He quickly rose in rank and was offered an appointment to
West Point.
[10]
Carson graduated from
Yale University, where he majored in
psychology.
[11] He received his
M.D. from the
University of Michigan Medical School.
[12][13] He completed his residency in neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
[14]
Medical career
Carson was a professor of
neurosurgery,
oncology,
plastic surgery, and
pediatrics, and he was the director of pediatric neurosurgery at
Johns Hopkins Hospital.
[15] At 33, he became the youngest major division director in the hospital's history as director of pediatric neurosurgery. He was also a co-director of the Johns Hopkins Craniofacial Center.
Carson specialized in traumatic brain injuries, brain and spinal cord tumors,
achondroplasia, neurological and congenital disorders,
craniosynostosis,
epilepsy, and
trigeminal neuralgia.
[15]
Carson believes his
hand–eye coordination and three-dimensional reasoning made him a gifted surgeon.
[16] After medical school, he became a neurosurgery resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He began his career as a neurosurgeon, but also developed an interest in
pediatrics.
[16]
In 1987, Carson successfully separated
conjoined twins, the Binder twins, who had been joined at the back of the head (
craniopagus twins). The 70-member surgical team, led by Carson, worked for 22 hours. Both twins survived.
[17][18][19]
Carson figured in the revival of the
hemispherectomy, a drastic surgical procedure in which part or all of one hemisphere of the brain is removed to control severe pediatric
epilepsy. He refined the procedure in the 1980s, encouraged by
John M. Freeman,
[20] and performed it many times.
[21][22]
Carson has served on the boards of the
Kellogg Company,
Costco, and the
Academy of Achievement.
[23] He is an
emeritus fellow of the
Yale Corporation.
[23][24][25]