Ben Carson Shattering Stereotype About Brain Surgeons – The New Yorker
Brain surgeons, long burdened with the onerous reputation of being among the smartest people in the world, are expressing relief that the Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson is shattering that stereotype once and for all.
In interviews with brain surgeons across the country, the doctors revealed the enormous pressure they felt to live up to their profession’s inflated renown for intelligence before Carson entered the race.
“When people found out I was a brain surgeon they would always assume I was some kind of a genius,” said Harland Dorrinson, a neurosurgeon in Toledo, Ohio. “Now they are beginning to understand that you can know a lot about brain surgery and virtually nothing about anything else.”
Dorrinson said that acquaintances used to view him as a source of wisdom on a wide range of subjects, but added, “Ever since Ben Carson said that prisons make people gay, that’s really fallen off.”
The brain surgeon said that he would probably contribute to Carson’s campaign to keep him in the race: “every time he says something, it helps bring people’s unrealistic expectations about brain surgeons back down to earth.”
He said that he was cheered by Carson’s pronouncement over the weekend that Muslims should not be President. “Now you can cross politics off the list of things that people will expect me to be knowledgeable about,” he said. “I think I speak for a lot of brain surgeons when I say, ‘Thank you, Ben Carson.’ ”
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