Upon his retirement in 2016 after 28 years on the faculty of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine, Laurence B. McCullough, Ph.D., became Distinguished Emeritus Professor. As a philosopher-medical educator, Dr. McCullough taught professional ethics in medicine to medical students on core rotations, residents, and fellows in Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Surgery at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Texas Children's Hospital. He taught in and directed the required first-year Ethics Course. In Baylor's Ethics Track (now Pathway, initiated at the request of members of the Class of 1993), he taught the third-year clinical ethics elective and mentored 130 fourth-year medical students in their capstone independent research elective. As Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Rice University, Dr. McCullough taught courses in the history of philosophy and history of medical ethics. As Adjunct Professor of Ethics in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medical College, he taught medical students on the core rotation, residents, and fellows. In 2013, Dr. McCullough received Baylor's highest teaching award, The Barbara and Corbin J. Robertson Presidential Award for Excellence in Education. In 2014 Dr. McCullough received the Baylor Pediatric Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Non-Pediatric Faculty Member from Baylor’s Department of Pediatrics.

Dr. McCullough has 720 publications in the peer-reviewed literature, 122 invited, original chapters in scholarly volumes, and 92 chapters in medical textbooks (h-index = 48). He takes special pride in the papers that Ethics Track graduates and fellows whom he mentored in Geriatrics, Neonatology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pediatric Critical Care invited him to co-author. He has also authored or co-authored 10 books and edited or co-edited 9 books.

Dr. McCullough’s research as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator was funded by the American Council of Learned Societies, American Philosophical Society, The National Endowment for the Humanities, National Institutes of Health, NASA, Veterans Health Affairs, the Milbank Memorial Fund, and the Littauer and Earhart Foundations.

Dr. McCullough served on the ethics committees and as a clinical ethics consultant at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and Texas Children’s Hospital, including its Women’s Pavilion and Fetal Center.

Dr. McCullough earned his A.B., cum laude with Honors in Art History, from Williams College (1969) and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin (1975). He completed his Post-Doctoral Fellowship at The Hastings Center, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York (1975-1976). He held appointments on the medical and philosophy faculties at Texas A&M University (1976-1979) and Georgetown University (1979-1988), where he was also a Senior Research Scholar in The Kennedy Institute of Ethics.

He married historian Linda J. Quintanilla, Ed.D., in May, 1977. They reside with their dog, Cheli, in Austin, Texas, where Dr. McCullough serves as a Volunteer Gallery Teacher at the Blanton Museum of Art of the University of Texas at Austin.