Dr. Black earned his medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine in 1967. He completed his training in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he served as Chief Resident in Internal Medicine. He spent 2 years as a staff associate at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases and completed a fellowship in Nephrology at the Yale University of Medicine.

He was principal investigator (PI) of the Rush University Medical Center/Cook County Hospital Women’s Health Initiative Clinical Center until his retirement from Rush. He was also the PI for the Controlled Onset Verapamil Investigation of Cardiovascular Endpoints (CONVINCE) and a regional physician coordinator for the Antihypertensive and Lipid Lowering Trial to Prevent Heart Attack (ALLHAT). While at Yale, he was the Principal Investigator for the Yale site of the Systolic Hypertension Elderly Program (SHEP). He has written more than 370 articles, book chapters, and manuscripts and 200 abstracts focusing on high blood pressure, preventive cardiology, and preventive medicine. He is co-editor of the Hypertension Primer, now in its fourth edition and Clinical Trials in Hypertension and Hypertension, A Companion to Braunwald’s Heart Disease and does a weekly Web Cast called “Black on Cardiology” for MedScape Cardiology.

        Dr. Black is currently the President of the American Society of Hypertension (ASH) and a member of the ASH Board of Directors. He is a member of the CardioRenal Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration and was the American Heart Association and American Hospital Association Representative to the Coordinating Committee of the National High Blood Pressure Education Program. Among his other professional activities, Dr. Black was a member of the Executive Committee of the Sixth & Seventh Joint National Committees on the Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure.