Pharmacy Focus: Public Health Matters- Celebrating American Pharmacist Month Part 1 with Neil MacKinnon

Today's first installment in our American Pharmacist Month special features Neil MacKinnon, BSc (Pharm), MSc (Pharm), PhD, FCSHP, FNAP, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia’s only public academic health center, who discusses his time in academia and how he hopes to impact the pharmacy community through public health.

He serves as the Chief Academic Officer of the university, overseeing its ten colleges and schools, as well as diversity and inclusion, enrollment and student affairs, faculty affairs, institutional effectiveness and planning, instruction and innovation, the registrar’s office, and the research enterprise. He also serves on the board of AU Health. He is a Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences in the Medical College of Georgia.

Prior to his current position, he was Dean of the James L Winkle College of Pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati. He was Director of the State Office of Rural Health for Arizona and a Professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona. He was also Professor and Associate Director for Research at the College of Pharmacy at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

In 2010, he co-authored a national bestselling book in Canada with a primary care physician called Take As Directed. In 2018, he was inducted into the National Academies of Practice. As Provost, he maintains an active research program in health policy with over 190 publications and 300 presentations to date.

A pharmacist, Neil has practiced in the hospital and community settings. He is a Past-President of the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists. He and his wife Leanne have three teen daughters.