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TEMPLE, Texas – Scott & White Healthcare Board of Trustees Chairman Drayton McLane announced on August 20, 2010 the future retirement of Scott & White Healthcare President and CEO Alfred B. Knight, M.D. Dr. Knight, who in 2000 became the first President and CEO for the merged hospital and clinic system now known as Scott & White Healthcare, will assume the role of President of the Scott & White Healthcare Foundation (Scott & White’s philanthropic arm) upon leaving his current position.

Dr. Knight will be succeeded by Chief Operating Officer and Chief Medical Officer Robert W. Pryor, M.D., MBA. Dr. Knight and Dr. Pryor will work in tandem during the next year to insure a smooth transition of leadership.

"Scott & White will end its current fiscal year with excellent operational and financial results," said McLane. This is in great part due to Dr. Knight and the stellar leadership team he has built and directed in leading Scott & White’s unprecedented growth. Dr. Knight’s legacy to Scott & White is also one of building our reputation as a national model of care, one that enables Scott & White to provide the highest quality care to Texans across a 25,000-square-mile service area. This while never losing sight of Scott & White’s mission to provide the most personalized, comprehensive and highest quality health care, enhanced by medical education and research."

"It has been my honor to lead this great organization during the last decade of extraordinary growth in the 113-year history of Scott & White. Dr. Pryor is exactly the right leader to continue Scott & White’s march to its vision of being the most trusted and most valued name in American health care," said Knight. "I still have a lot of energy and interest in the future of Scott & White and am looking forward to the new role I will undertake with the Foundation."

Under Dr. Knight’s leadership, Scott & White Healthcare has grown to become one of the largest integrated group practices in the nation, including 10 hospitals and hospital partners, more than 60 clinics, a health plan and multiple subsidiaries (including Scott & White Hospice and Home Care), with total staff exceeding 12,000, including over 1,200 physicians, scientists and health care providers.

A physician leader with a distinguished career in large group practice management, Robert W. Pryor, M.D., MBA, 59, has been Chief Medical Officer of Scott & White since 2005 and Chief Operating Officer since August 2007. Prior to joining Scott & White, he served as Chief Medical Officer at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. The Temple, Texas native is board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics, as well as a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians and The American College of Critical Care Medicine. He is certified in Lean Healthcare from the University of Michigan, College of Engineering, Center for Professional Development.

A graduate of Baylor University, Dr. Pryor received his medical degree from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He completed a pediatric internship and residency at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and a pediatric intensive care medicine fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He earned an MBA from Arizona State University and is a member of The American College of Physician Executives.