Ben Carson to Retire From Surgery; Open for 2016 Election?
This June, renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson will retire from surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., where he has served as head of pediatric neurosurgery since he was 33, and possibilities about what the 61-year-old doctor will do next are wide open, he says.
Since his political star turn at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday, Carson, one of the first surgeons to separate conjoined twins back in the 1980s, has been heavily discussed as a viable contender for the 2016 presidential elections and he has done little to clamp the chatter.
Carson, who's latest book America the Beautiful was in the fifth spot on Amazon's bestselling list Thursday, made the revelation about his plans in an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto on Monday.
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When asked if he would make a run for the post of leader of the free world, Carson reiterated as he had done in several other interviews that: "I've always said if God grabs me by the collar and sticks me in that arena that's the only way that I'd do it."
But then he noted: "…I'm actually gonna retire in June from surgery. I will still teach, I will still be involved so it does open up a lot of possibilities for me."
Carson, who co-founded the Carson Scholars Fund with his wife, Candy, in 1994 to promote America's "intellectual superstars" and academic excellence in the nation's schools, also reiterated his dissatisfaction with the current state of the nation's education system."You know I'm very focused on education and getting the populous back to where it used to be back in 1831 when Alexis de Tocqueville came here and was so impressed, because an uneducated populous will fall for anything," Carson told Cavuto.
"If you go and talk to most people, they mean well but they don't have much of a breadth on education, of knowledge of understanding what the real issues are and therefore they listen to pundits on television who tell them what they are supposed to think and they keep repeating that until pretty soon they say, 'oh, well that must be true,'" he said.
Carson's detractors have criticized him for going "rogue" in delivering a politically incorrect speech about government policies at the National Prayer Breakfast, which was attended by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden last Thursday.
A video of his remarks at the Breakfast, however, continues to get rave reviews on YouTube and other social media for his "logical" and "common sense" ideas on issues like healthcare, education and taxation. He also noted that he has no plans to apologize for speaking the truth.
Carson's inspiring story of overcoming childhood poverty to become the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., is chronicled in his book Gifted Hands. In his latest book, America the Beautiful, he shares his concern for the nation's current direction and posits a return to the ideals that made America great in the first place.
