Dr. Gregory H. Bledsoe is a board certified Emergency Medicine physician and the former surgeon general for the state of Arkansas. He was appointed surgeon general in January 2015 by Governor Asa Hutchinson and served in this role until February 2023.
Dr. Bledsoe is a strategic advisor with New Road Capital Partners, and the founder of ExpedMed, a medical education company focused on expedition medicine. In 2022, Dr. Bledsoe ran in the Republican primary for Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas, finishing third in a field of six candidates. In 2023, Dr. Bledsoe served as the official team physician for Team USA at the Ryder Cup in Rome, Italy.
After completing medical school and residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Dr. Bledsoe spent five years on faculty in the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine completing a two-year fellowship in International Emergency Medicine and a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2005, he received the “Teacher of the Year” award from the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine. In 2021, Dr. Bledsoe completed a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) in the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Dr. Bledsoe has extensive experience in international travel having visited over 50 countries. His international medical experience includes serving as a field physician in Honduras and Nepal, teaching disaster preparedness in Tanzania, leading a nutritional survey among the Beja tribe in northeast Sudan, working as a medical consultant in Beijing, China, and acting as the medical officer for ships in both Antarctica and the Arctic. He is the chief editor of Expedition and Wilderness Medicine, a 700 page medical text published by Cambridge University Press in the spring of 2008.
In addition to his clinical duties, Dr. Bledsoe has been an instructor and medical consultant for the United States Secret Service. He was the personal physician to former President Bill Clinton during Clinton’s tour of Africa in September 2002, and served in Uganda and Senegal on the advance team of President George W. Bush when the President visited the African continent in July of 2003.
Dr. Bledsoe’s research has been published in many prestigious medical journals including the Journal of Trauma, Prehospital & Disaster Medicine, Southern Medical Journal, Journal of Emergency Medicine, Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, Pediatric Emergency Care, and The Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. His research about injury rates in mixed martial arts (MMA) competitions has become one of the most referenced MMA papers in the lay press. (1, 2)
Dr. Bledsoe is a frequent public speaker and has been interviewed by numerous regional and national media outlets including The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Baltimore Sun, The Naperville Sun, Fort Worth Weekly, Austin-American Statesman, Cincinnati Magazine, El Mundo, ESPN the Magazine, USA Today, FOX 5 New York City, Politico, and 60 Minutes. He has provided clinical and strategic consultation to numerous nonprofit and commercial entities.
In addition to his medical practice, Dr. Bledsoe is a private pilot, a scuba diver, an Eagle Scout, and a student in Brazilian jiu jitsu. He is a member of The Explorers Club and the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) national medical honor society.