Dr. Eric MacLaughlin serves as University Distinguished Professor, Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, and Clinical Professor in the Departments of Family and Community Medicine and Internal Medicine at TTUHSC School of Medicine. As Chair, he oversees 50 full-time faculty across campuses in Amarillo, Abilene, Dallas, and Lubbock, in addition to ~600 adjunct faculty. The department is organized into five divisions—Adult Medicine, Ambulatory Care, Clinical/Translational Research, Geriatrics/Pediatrics, and Practice Management—along with major offices supporting residency training and experiential education. He established the Chair Advisory Council, consisting of all Division Heads, the Vice Chairs of Experiential Education and Residencies, and Regional Deans, to assist in departmental strategic, budgetary, and administrative decisions. He also oversees the Managed Health Care Division, two SOP-operated pharmacies, and the Texas Panhandle Poison Center, one of six poison centers in Texas designated to serve 71 counties covering one-quarter of the land mass of Texas and around 1.4M people.
Since joining TTUHSC in 1999, Dr. MacLaughlin has established a national reputation in pharmacy education, hypertension management, and interdisciplinary care models. He was the sole pharmacist on the 2017 ACC/AHA High Blood Pressure Guideline Writing Committee and has authored multiple chapters in DiPiro’s Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiologic Approach, the leading pharmacotherapy textbook. His research and practice span chronic cardiovascular disease management, team-based care innovations, and public health interventions, including leading TTUHSC's viral transport media production during COVID-19 and coordinating vaccination efforts in Amarillo.
Dr. MacLaughlin is a Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and a Board-Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist. His numerous honors include the ACCP Education Award, Rufus A. Lyman Award for best paper published in the American Journal of Pharmacy Education from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), Chancellor’s Council Distinguished Teaching Award (Texas Tech’s highest teaching honor), multiple TTUHSC President’s Excellence Awards, the Most Influential Professor Award, and 13 SOP Teacher or Teaching Team of the Year recognitions. He was part of the team awarded the 2024 AACP Lawrence C. Weaver Transformative Community Service Award.
At the national level, Dr. MacLaughlin has served as an elected Board of Regents member for ACCP, Chair of the Pharmacotherapy Specialty Council for the Board of Pharmacy Specialties, elected Chair of ACCP’s Ambulatory Care Practice and Research Network, American Heart Association/American Medical Association Target: BP Advisory Group, American Heart Association Council on Clinical Cardiology Clinical Pharmacology Committee, and American Pharmacists Association representative for the CDC’s Hypertension Control Initiative. He continues to maintain an active clinical practice as a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at the Texas Tech Center for Community and Family Medicine.
Interests
- Cardiology
- Family medicine
- Heart disease
Pharmacy Research Interests
- cardiovascular
- cardiovascular disease management
- cardiovascular risk factors
- clinical pharmacy
- coronary artery disease
- heart disease
- hypertension
- interdisciplinary teamwork
- interprofessional education
- pharmacy
- teaching