Samuelson interrupted his studies for a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Utah to serve a mission for the Mormon Church in Scotland. After earning a master’s degree in educational psychology and a medical degree, he completed his internship and residency at Duke University in North Carolina. He spent the next seventeen years practicing rheumatology and serving on the University of Utah medical faculty, including working as the university’s vice president for health sciences and dean of the school of medicine. He accepted a position at Intermountain Health Care as a senior vice president.