Ben Carson is a doctor. He was born in Detroit, Michigan on September 18, 1951. He was born to a poor family and struggled as a student to do well. For most of his childhood, he lived with his mom and older brother.

Ben Carson's mother encouraged him to read and believe in himself. Eventually, he became an honors student and graduated from Yale University. He went on to University of Michigan to earn his degree in medicine. Most of his interest was in the brain.

Ben Carson eventually became a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University. A neurosurgeon is a doctor who does surgery on the brain. He specialized in working with kids, but performed surgeries on everyone regardless of age. One day, he would perform a surgery that would change the world.

On September 7, 1987, Ben Carson performed surgery on conjoined twins and became the first person to separate them from the brain. These twins, Patrick and Benjamin, were called "Siamese." The surgery took hours, and Ben Carson needed the help of 70 others. It inspired many other neurosurgeons to separate conjoined twins.