October 29, 2025

It was a warm summer day. Carl Black enjoyed walking outside in the sun after finishing his lab work. It was one of the rare moments when he could switch off and not worry about how he was supposed to graduate without running out of financial aid. In the distance, he heard people shouting and the sound of footsteps approaching him. A group of young students, wearing camouflage military uniforms, was on its way to a drill. When the group passed Black, he suddenly realized that he might have figured out a way to graduate.

Born and raised in the Frankford area of Philadelphia, Black knows what it means to grow up in a rough neighborhood. He would see people he was close to, selling drugs on the streets, next to his house. “There were many times when I easily was sidetracked, but I always made sure I took care of school, and I tried to find myself, balancing what I would see every day,” Black said.

After finishing high school, Black had his first experience away from home. At Kutztown University, he studied business. However, after two semesters, he decided to take a break from school.

Back in Philadelphia, he started working at a GameStop to make money for a while. But in spite of having success, Black didn’t see a future there. He decided to continue his academic career at Penn State University, where he started an undergraduate degree in nanotechnology. It was once again another turning point in his life.

“It was a really crazy experience. To be honest, I don’t even know how I was able to do that, because a lot of folks had completely different backgrounds in engineering, but I managed pretty well in that program,” Black said. His dream of getting a bachelor’s degree suddenly seemed to shatter. Shortly before graduating, he didn’t receive enough financial aid to pay for college and had to find an alternative route. One day, walking back from class, Black saw the ROTC patrolling on campus. He realized that enlisting in the military would be a way to pay for his tuition. “The ball was rolling at this point, I wanted to keep going, I wanted to get my bachelor's degree and I knew if I would sacrifice going into the military, it would have to make sense, meaning that it had to be a job that I could translate to the real world,” he said.

Although Black enjoyed his nanotechnology studies at Penn State, he realized that he didn’t see a future in engineering.

“I was only behind the scenes with nanotechnology, I worked in the lab all the time and we did these really cool things, but we never interacted with people and I’m more of a people person,” he said.

Once again, Black decided to switch career fields and started his journey in medicine. He became a combat medic in the U.S. Army National Guard. After completing his military training in Missouri and Texas, he attended Temple University, where he received the financial aid he needed and graduated with a B.S. in biology and psychology.

Shortly after, he joined Drexel University's Physician Assistant program. One of the best decisions of his life, Black said. He praised Drexel’s hands-on experiential learning and its connections that helped him during his clinical rotations. Although Black saw himself working in emergency medicine, a Drexel faculty member advised him to go into family medicine. “He told me: ‘If you want to make a difference, you need to be in family medicine. If you do a great job there, you can keep people out of the hospital,” Black said.

This advice stuck with Black, and during his clinical rotation at Complete Physicians Services (CPS), he realized that he could keep people with high blood pressure or diabetes out of the emergency department if he did a good job in making them feel comfortable going into the practice.

After the end of his clinical rotation and his graduation from Drexel University, CPS hired Black. But not as a physician associate, but as a preceptor and potential owner of the family practice in Northeast Philadelphia. “I grew up less than 10 minutes from this practice. The people who are coming here are the same people who I grew up with, so I'm actually treating a lot of friends here and now, I’m one of the two owners of the company, it’s just surreal,” Black said.

The majority of the students who come to Complete Physician Services during their family medicine clinical rotations are Drexel students, Black said. He loves to educate the next generation of caretakers. “I don’t just teach them medicine, I try to teach real-life experiences, and I try to do a lot of character building, boost their confidence by helping them see that they are doing the right things,” Black said.

Although Black is running the family practice in Northeast Philadelphia, he knows that he wouldn’t be successful just by himself. It’s something that stuck with him from his previous time in the military.

“Being an individual is not as big as working together as a team. The practice is successful because of everyone here, because of the managers, the medical assistants, students, the cleaning people, the maintenance people,” he said. Black says he is currently working on bringing the practice into the modern day. Building a website is one of the big goals. This would open up new marketing opportunities but also improve connecting with patients. Something that Black prioritizes the most. He always wants the best for his patients. It's all part of his mission to evolve with the times while staying true to the values of quality care.

Written by Raphael Bartell, communication '27