Today we participated in an exciting interview with Dr. Ben Carson, Director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. Students read his book, Gifted Hands, and prepared questions based on their reading and scientific study. Nine classes from Florida, Michigan, New York, South Dakota and Texas were interactive and many others participated via streaming video. The program was coordinated and sponsored by Polycom. Thank you to Polycom and Johns Hopkins for making this happen! We used the ASK format for this videoconference. We started with opening comments from Dr. Carson, rotated through the schools for the questions, and closed with final comments. Here is a sampling of some of the questions.
- Do you think your life would have been the same if your mother would have left instead of your father?
- What is your stance on stem cell research?
- Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently in school?
- How do you balance your time between being doctor, author, husband and father?
- What advice do you have for students who want to follow their dreams?
The students had a great discussion with Dr. Carson and we were privileged to spend some time with him over his lunch hour.
We had a really unique site connected, AE21, a school made up of videoconference sites all over the U.S. One of their questions came from Florida and one from Alabama. It was neat for everyone connected to see how their class works.
Dr. Carson had a great message for the students on topics such as not allowing other people’s opinions to dictate your life, investing in your own education and learning, and preparing yourself to contribute to society. Thanks to everyone who made this happen!
Dr. Carson I have read your books and many articles about you. My question is, have you ever (in your successful and achieved years e.g as a doctor) at one point been discouraged or faced with some kind of frustration that made you feel like you couldn’t get to the next level, would you please share the instance and how you overcame it)?