GP:
Dr. Ben Carson recently attended an event at Texas A&M University for Turning Point USA. At one point, a woman in the audience took to the microphone and explained how Dr. Carson saved her life when she was a baby.
They then approached each other and hugged to the sound of applause from the audience.
It’s such an amazing moment. Dr. Carson doesn’t get nearly as much admiration as he deserves. more
If it is truly her life story, why does she need to read from her phone to tell it? (By the way, I think Dr. Ben Carson is a great man and I considered him my choice until he dropped out of the race.)
Dr. Ben Carson is one of the great men in this country. I would like to see him in a major role in the next Trump Administration!
I’m not taking anything away from the man, and yes he has an amazing life story and made the most of God’s gift to him, but saving babies with brain issues was kind of his job so he doesn’t need “thanked” for it any more than you need thank Dairy Queen for keeping the freezers plugged in, and being a humble man he’d probably agree with that statement.
My wife had a cousin who became a paramedic in some subdivision of Los Angeles, andsge called my wife all excited the first time she saved a life. My wife told me about it but was obviously expecting something from me other than when I said, something along the lines of “what’s she want, a cookie? she did her JOB, the one she TRAINED for, equipped for, and was PAID for, no more and no less. Nice that the city got some ROI on her there but let’s not get a God complex.”
I kind of regretted that a few years later when she had advanced to nurse, only to throw her medical career away when her son tragically died despite her attempts to revive him, but that doesn’t change the point that saving lives for him is like installing brakes to a mechanic, not everyone can do it and they are both jobs where people can die if you do it wrong, but I notice she isn’t thanking the guy that made it so her daddy could stop when he got to the hospital instead of driving through the wall…
…men with his gifts are rare, true, but never forget where those gifts come from.
There is a hospital named Plainsview Hospital in Kenya that has a very simple motto.
“We treat, God heals”.
Whether practicing or receiving medical care, both patient and doctor would do well to remember that.
And I believe Dr. Ben Carson most certainly does…
Carson embodies what a truly great man is. He’s humble, doesn’t brag, and is extremely competent.
SNS, being a retired nurse that indeed saved people from death, both in hospital and out I didn’t relish accolades and special awards for a job I was trained and paid to to, or not, just the most trained and equipped guy on scene to render first aid. In fact it was embarrassing to be singled out. Often I refused to give my name or would quietly exit to avoid the drama.
SNS, I don’t think Dr. Carson was asking to be thanked. It seemed that lady, who is very grateful to have lived a productive life, was genuine in thanking a good man for making that possible.
Cederq
SATURDAY, 20 APRIL 2024, 13:39 AT 1:39 PM
Exactly. It’s not possible to get in the drama of every patient and stay sane, even if it’s complementary. Finish your shift and go have dinner, like any other job.
…There’s a movie called “Madame Web” out now that’s mostly woke revisionist trash, but the main character is a paramedic in NYC. Many people panned this movie for many reasons, but most people who haven’t been there seem incredulous that a paramedic doesn’t want to deal with a rescued child fangirling over her and separates from the lauditory situation as quickly as possible.
I personally find that to be the only BELIEVABLE thing in the entire movie.
…they toss all their believability with an absolutely hilarious “CPR” scene later (not that the “Car Rescue” scene isn’t laugh packed for those who know), but that’s a different subject for another day…
joe6pak
SATURDAY, 20 APRIL 2024, 13:46 AT 1:46 PM
“SNS, I don’t think Dr. Carson was asking to be thanked. It seemed that lady, who is very grateful to have lived a productive life, was genuine in thanking a good man for making that possible.”
…agreed. As I said, to me he seems a very humble man in a profession mostly filled with arrogant, vainglorious narcissists, and I don’t think he sought accolades at all.
All I’m saying is that he’s an amazing man, no doubt about it, but he’s a man with a message thats desperately needed for our times and don’t lose the message by focusing on the man.
If this happens with the hundreds or thousands he’s helped, the man simply would not have time for anything else.
God Bless them both.
Now let him get on with the business of saving a sick nation.
My 35-year-old daughter Caity was born in Oct. 1988 with craniosynostosis where her skull didn’t fuse together properly as it should have done. She is a miracle because her first 3 to 4 years she had many surgeries to correct this birth defect. She was a regular patient and received extraordinary at Seattle Children’s Hospital along with my wife while I (along with both sets of grandparents and family) took care of my 2 older kids at home. They had to operate and actually remove part of her brain at one point. I am glad to say that she despite a lot of trauma from this when she was little is as normal as all get out. She’s worn glasses all of her life, at first, they were thick bug-eyed glasses, now she wears normal glasses. Because of all her surgeries when she was a little child, she has more compassion for other small children who undergo similar situations and birth defects. She now works with small children with the Head Start program at Spokane Falls Community College and loves her job and her kids. She also was also a little slow initially with talking and didn’t really talk much until she was 3 or 4 but with help with speech therapy she hasn’t quit talking. Like I said before, she’s a miracle and a total blessing to myself and her older brother and sister and everyone that she has contact with. And beside kids she loves all animals including all of our golden retrievers, our yellow male tabby cat and Kirby our blonde super active almost 2-year-old border collie. My wife and I were blessed to have her as our youngest child.
Seattle Children’s Hospital provided her with extraordinary care when she was a little child. And fortunately, since my wife worked at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, we had excellent health insurance which paid all or most of her hospital bills.
Thank you for that, Geoff, and God bless your daughter for overcoming a rough start, you for seeing her through, and all her medical teams for making it happen.
Again, not belittling these accomplishments at all. I certainly could not, since my son was born cleft, had three surgeries before his first birthday, and I became very familiar with his craniofacial and ENT doctors.
Again, the point isn’t that he doesn’t deserve it, but that it isn’t relevant to the situation at hand, and besides he very likely does not remember her or most patients at ALL.
My son’s lead craniofacial surgeon, at the onset of our journey, wanted us to see what expectations we could have for the end result of all this time and fear and pain. He then handed us a book of some of his former patients with the statement that these were not the best or worst outcomes, but the average results of his works, and then only those patients whose parents had consented to have these photographs shown to others.
It was a big book.
He gestured at the cabinet he had taken it from and said we could review others if we liked.
There were a lot of books.
…I was overwhelmed just looking at the guy’s BOOKSHELF and the sheer volume of wounded babies he had corrected.
I can’t imagine how chaotic it would be if every one of those kids and their parents tried to get a hug and tell their story.
He’d die of old age before they were done and be able to do literally nothing else.
…the man was blessed with skill and the desire to use it for others, and has been a blessing to many, many others because of it.
Totally stipulated.
But he’s trying to turn his hand to healing the body politic, a much more violent and uncooperative patient than any other on Earth.
Folks could best honor him by helping him with that.
Dr. Carson is a wonderful person and doctor. He saved my nephews life twice. Once when he was 10 and once when he was 11.My nephew had brain tumors and he was the only doctor who gave my sister encouragement and hope.My nephew is now in his thirties working in the medical field.
VEEDONFLEECE
SATURDAY, 20 APRIL 2024, 12:07 AT 12:07 PM
“If it is truly her life story, why does she need to read from her phone to tell it?”
…I once toasted a friend and mentor of 20 years at his retirement party. Not a single thing I had to say to or about him was anything but lived experience, but because I wanted to be sure I mentioned specific things and also because I’m an abysmal public speaker, I wrote the whole thing out beforehand and read it off my phone, mostly without looking up so’s I wouldn’t start Bidening after scoping all the eyes on me, especially as I would have to work with many of them later.
While this definitely affected my delivery it did not affect my sincerity, and his wife was glad I had it that way because she asked me if I could send her a copy of my speech that I literally had in my hand, and so I did.
The audience THIS lady was speaking in front of was MUCH larger and was being broadcast and recorded for posterity, was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to talk to a great man, and was about her highly personal birth defect besides, so yeah, can’t fault her for wanting something to keep her on track as well.
One reason I write so much is because I speak so little. I can’t articulate for shit verbally, my brain just isn’t wired for it.
And I suspect I am not alone.
…good job we aren’t all glib speakers too, otherwise we’d all be politicians and then NO actual work would ever get done…