Dr. Bullard, a native North Carolinian, studied Fine and Applied Arts as an undergraduate and obtained a B.S. degree in Graphic Design from Appalachian State University. In the first few years after graduation, she worked as an Assistant Art Director and a freelance graphic designer in North Carolina's Research Triangle. During that time, she took pre-medical courses at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She remained in Chapel Hill for both medical school and a residency in General Surgery. During her residency she spent two years as an NIH Trauma Training Grant Fellow. During these basic science years, she studied the role of second messengers and apoptosis in Acute Lung Injury. Following residency, she completed a fellowship in Surgical Critical Care at the University of California, San Francisco. She subsequently completed a fellowship year in Trauma Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital.

Dr. Bullard is a member of the core staff of the San Francisco Injury Center and a board member for the California Transplant Donor Network. She is actively involved in teaching her clinical specialties of  Surgery, Critical Care and Trauma. Her areas of research interest include transfusion medicine, systemic inflammatory response syndrome, the role of information technology in systems management, and the use of simulators for surgical education.