I had the benefit of some very good high school English teachers. One in particular when I was a senior in high school. I was a jock, okay. I was not a student. Although I enjoyed reading, that was about it as far as academics. But she forced us to read good books and good writers, particularly good American writers. We weren’t too thrilled to do it initially, but she taught us how to do it. Through that, I discovered some of my favorite authors, particularly John Steinbeck. Once I had gone through all of Steinbeck’s books, I realized that I had had a wonderful experience.

I definitely had some teachers who were important. My fifth grade science teacher, Mr. Jake, was really the first teacher to express confidence in my academic abilities because I was the only person who could identify a rock, which was obsidian and it was because of the reading that I had been doing because after I got through with the animal books, I went to plants, and when I finished all the plant books, I went to rocks because we lived on the railroad tracks and there were a lot of rocks, so I became an expert in geology, and this was while I was still a dummy in the class. So, it was like the first time that I had an opportunity to raise my hand and demonstrate my knowledge because nobody else knew the answer. Everybody was absolutely flabbergasted, but Mr. Jake said to me, “Benjamin, that’s incredible.” He said, “Why don’t you come by the laboratory after school and we can talk about starting a rock collection for you.” And, from there I started going to the laboratory every day, getting involved with feeding the squirrel, a red squirrel named Maynard. There was a tarantula, crayfish, a Jack Dempsey fish and I got involved in all this stuff. There was a microscope and I started looking at water specimens and learned all about paramecium and volvox and amoebas, and it was just incredible. That really was what started me on my way.

There are three teachers who are still involved in my life. Ray Wilson — who is my office manager, and who was a teacher in my high school, as well as my basketball coach in high school — is very much involved in my life, and is a real father figure for me. A gentleman named Earl Mosley, who never specifically taught me, but was always there, and was a role model for me, was a coach when I was a freshman. And then a guy named Charles McIlwaine, who is a teacher and a coach. In my high school years those three really stood out, really helped to become part of the support group that’s necessary when you’re experiencing all types of physical changes and mental changes, to help to explain things, and put them in the proper perspective.

There was a teacher at school who was fun. I don’t know if he had a big impact on my thinking, but he was a lot of fun. His name was Dow Bunyan Bean, and he had a Doctor of Divinity degree, from some place in the South. I think he came from Georgia. And he had lost his faith and he had lost his interest in religion, and had become a secular high school teacher. Everybody called him Doc Bean. He was marvelous. He was full of animation. He was relatively old at that time. At least we kids considered him relatively old. But he was very lively, jumping around, raising his voice, lowering his voice in all sorts of interesting ways, with a racy line of talk about whatever he was discussing, and suddenly stopping and asking somebody a question to make sure the person was listening. Writing down some little grain in his book. He was lively, and it was marvelous. And if he didn’t know something, then he would immediately send whoever asked the question to the library to see what was known on the subject. I thought that was particularly splendid. Not that, of course, everything is available in a library. Lots of things are simply not known, or maybe unavailable in a high school library. But the fact that he wanted to push every inquiry as far as it could be pushed with the local resources, that really impressed me. I thought that was great.

I think so. I really do. With your own effort, you can improve yourself, but people find they can’t improve beyond a certain point. I like to play golf, but I know that no matter how much I practice, I will never get above a certain level. I think that’s also true of surgery. Some people are born with the gifts and the mind for surgery, and they may go on to great heights. Others may try and try, only to reach a certain plateau.

You have to be intelligent, and be able to cope with stress. It is a stressful life, both mentally and physically. Those are the qualities to succeed as a surgeon.

I don’t lead by force, I lead by example. And if I can, set a good example. If I can set an example to my staff and my group, by being punctual, I come to work every morning, walk onto the hospital floor within two or three minutes of the same time every day, and they can depend upon it.