Dr. Christopher Arndt was named Interim President and CEO of the UNM Medical Group in March, 2025.
He is the Chair of The Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine and serves on the Board of Directors and Finance Board of the UNM Medical Group.
Dr. Arndt was the founding director of UNM’s Acute Pain and Regional Anesthesia fellowship. His clinical and scholarly interests include regional and acute pain and ambulatory anesthesia. He has served in many leadership roles in the School of Medicine and UNM Health Sciences, including Vice Chair for Quality and Compliance, Medical Director of the UNM Outpatient Surgery Center, co-chair LoboWings Surgical Services Safety Committee, and Inpatient Acute Pain Service Director.
As a double alumnus of UNM, he completed both his MD (2002) and residency (2006) at the UNM School of Medicine. Prior to medical school, he served as a U.S. Navy officer aboard the USS Berkeley and USS Callaghan. Dr. Arndt and his wife Natalie have proudly resided in New Mexico since 1995 and have raised three, now adult, children: Ben, Bela, and Eddie.
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Susan Kleiner: I’m Susan Kleiner from OGC Solutions and today I’m joined by Dr. Christopher Arndt, Interim President and CEO of UNM Medical Group and Chair of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Arndt is a double alumnus of the UNM School of Medicine, completing both his MD and residency there. Before entering medicine, Dr. Arndt served as a U.S. Navy officer, an experience that shaped his leadership style and commitment to service. In addition to his medical degrees, he has also pursued formal leadership training and earned an MBA focused on health care management. Dr. Arndt leads one of the largest physician organizations in the state at the intersection of patient care, education, and innovation, and today we’ll talk to him more about what it means for him to lead in modern health care. Dr. Arndt, welcome to the show.
Dr. Chris Arndt: Thank you, Susan. Thank you for the invitation. I appreciate it.
Susan Kleiner: I know you are so busy because in addition to being the Interim CEO, you’re teaching, you’re the Chair of the Anesthesiology Department, so I certainly appreciate your time. Jumping right in there, I know that your time as a U.S. Navy officer really changed the way you look at the world, and the question that I have for you would be, what did the Navy teach you that medicine didn’t?
Dr. Chris Arndt: Well, I don’t know that I expected to have a medical career later on. I was quite young, and I think one of the things that the military pushes you to do in a leadership role is to push you into leadership roles where you’re leading people immediately at a very young age.
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