Gifted Hands

This Thursday and Friday, August 19-20, we were shown the fascinating, heartwarming, and extremely enjoyable movie: Gifted Hands. The movie followed brilliant brain surgeon, Ben Carson. The movie opens with Ben faced with a near impossible task of intercranial seperation of infant twins. No surgeon was ever able to save both twins in this instance, for the surgery caused rapid, fatal blood loss. Ben was determined to find a solution. The movie then cuts to Ben as a child in Detroit in 1961. His was relentlessly bullied as a child because he didn't have good grades and most importantly because he was a black boy in a majority white school. His teachers didn't help him, some even actively trying to get him to fail. Ben's mother realizes that she doesn't want her boys to turn out like her (illiterate, poor, and no advanced schooling). She struggles a lot with her mental health and has to be put into a pyschiatric facility. While she's away, she makes her boys learn times tables and do "book reports". From these reports, Ben learns that he actually loves to read and learn he just never really knew how. Soon, Ben's grades improve rapidly. His mother comes home and is blown away by how far he had come. She inspires Ben to keep working with the words "the whole world is full of everybody else". To help Ben and his brother, she learns to read from a wealthy man she cleans for. With his new found love for learning, Ben becomes top of his 8th grade class. At his ceremony, one of his teacher gives a racist speech about how Ben wasn't smart and didn't deserve his title. Angered, Ben's mother saves up money to send Ben to a better school that will appreciate his talent. Ben was very successful in his high school classes. While in high school, though, Ben struggles with anger issues and almost stabs a kid and almost attacks his mother. He is able to recover. In 1969, Ben gets a scholarship to Yale. There he learns he wants to be a neurosurgeon. He struggles in his classes but he works extremely hard and passes with "A's". At Yale, Ben meets his future wife Candy. He earns a hard-to-get spot at John Hopkins Surgical Residency Program. He is successful as a resident and even becomes Chief of Pediatric Nuerosurgery just 3 years after his residency. He has many personal struggles as an adult including almost losing his wife to childbirth and losing his sons in the process. The movie now comes back to the original surgery. Ben had an ambitious plan to stop the hearts of the babies to prevent them from bleeding out. This meant Ben had to repair the brains in an hour to prevent permanent damage. After 22 hours and with help of a team of 50 medical professionals, Ben is successful in his surgery. In a moment of glory and relief, the movie ends leaving the viewers feeling empowered and inspired