Is it correct to refer to a neurosurgeon with many scholarly publications as a "scientist"?

This may be off-topic here; if so, I'd appreciate suggestions for where else to post it.

I recently got into a disagreement with someone regarding Ben Carson, the American neurosurgeon who has recently become a prominent figure in right-wing politics, and is said to be considering a run for the Presidency. The other person in this disagreement referred to Carson as a "scientist". I thought that label seemed wrong. Without question he is an accomplished neurosurgeon, perhaps one of the greatest living, and he definitely has many, many publications. But somehow the "scientist" label felt off-key to me, and those publications don't seem to me to be "research" as much as they are clinical reports.

I know the words "scientist" and "research" don't have hard-and-fast definitions, and I certainly don't want to cast aspersions on the applied sciences. Nor do I want this thread to fixate solely on the individual that inspired it. I'm really interested in the more general issue that is in the title of the question: Is it correct to refer to a neurosurgeon with many scholarly publications as a "scientist"?