YOUNGSTOWN Neurosurgeon: Reward academic excellence

Reward intellectual pursuits and reap the dividends, the doctor advised.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- To maintain its position as a world leader, this country must properly reward intellectual pursuits and return to traditional values and principles, a prominent neurosurgeon said in a lecture at Youngstown State University.
"We have got to find a way to stop just giving it [scholastic excellence] lip service and start rewarding academic performance, and I think we will find that it will pay large dividends for us in the future," Dr. Benjamin Carson Sr. told several hundred people during a motivational speech Wednesday in YSU's Kilcawley Center.
Dr. Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University since 1984, sponsors a scholarship program bearing his name, and lamented that surveys find American students rank 20th or lower among the nations of the world in math and science problem-solving ability. "Is that appalling?" he asked.
"They can tell you about the hockey playoffs. They can tell you about the Academy Awards. But they can't tell you what a quadratic equation is. They can't tell you the capital of Missouri," he said of many American youths.
Hypocrisy: "We talk about how important education is. But we pay the average shortstop 100 times more than we pay a schoolteacher, and we think the kids can't see through that. Kids have what I call a built-in hypocrisy antenna," he observed.
"And then you couple that with what has happened to our sense of morals and values," he said, denouncing the political-correctness movement as dangerous to society and inconsistent with free speech.
"It means you can't say what you think. It means you can only say what everybody is supposed to say,'' he said. "The worst thing about political correctness is that it says that there is no absolute right and wrong. Everything is OK as long as you can find a way to justify it," he added.
Citing once-powerful civilizations, such as ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, which eventually collapsed, he said, "They became enamored of sports and entertainment, lifestyles of the rich and famous. They lost their moral compass, and they went right down the tube.''
"Some people say it can't happen here. I think it's already in the process of happening," he observed. "Are we smart enough to look at what has happened in the past and to make a midcourse correction?" he asked.
Successful separations: Dr. Carson, who grew up in poverty in a single-parent home, became world-famous in 1987 as the principal surgeon in the successful 22-hour separation of the Binder twins from Germany, who were joined at the head.
A decade later, he led a team of South African and Zambian surgeons in a successful 28-hour operation that separated twins joined at the top of the head -- the first time both conjoined twins in such a complex case remained neurologically normal after separation.
Local patient: More recently, he successfully operated on Luke Laukhart, the 21/2-year-old son of Herbert Jr. and Sarah Laukhart of Warren. A cheerful and energetic boy, Luke ran across the dais as his mother sat in the front row awaiting Dr. Carson's appearance as the Skeggs lecturer.
To correct for Luke's painfully inadequate cranial capacity, which left insufficient room for his brain, Dr. Carson removed Luke's forehead bone, cut it into pieces, placed wire between the pieces to allow expansion, and put it back in Luke's skull Jan. 10, 2001. Luke, who didn't speak before the surgery, now speaks clearly in sentences.
Sitting next to Mrs. Laukhart was Kaci King, of Ridgeway, Ohio, whose son, Austin, had the same symptoms. Dr. Carson successfully operated on Austin on Dec. 21. The two women met for the first time Wednesday a few hours before Dr. Carson's talk.