Tenet Healthcare Corporation (NYSE: THC) today announced that Kelvin A. Baggett, M.D., has been appointed senior vice president and chief medical officer, effective Oct. 26, 2009. He will assume the duties overseen for the past two years by the company’s chief operating officer, Stephen L. Newman, M.D. Dr. Baggett will be responsible for Tenet’s ongoing efforts to continuously improve the safety and quality of clinical care.

“The appointment of Dr. Baggett demonstrates our Commitment to Quality, a strategic guiding principle and core focus of our company,” said Dr. Newman. “I am confident he will build upon Tenet’s solid foundation in improving clinical outcomes and patient safety based on established, evidence-based protocols. Dr. Baggett brings with him a strong background in clinical quality improvement and a keen understanding of the business of healthcare.”

As chief medical officer, Dr. Baggett will apply leadership, creativity, vision and knowledge gained from past experience and success to improve not only the quality of care provided to patients throughout the company, but also the management of costs and the building of a more cohesive relationship between the system and the medical staff around the country.

Dr. Baggett joins Tenet from HCA, Inc. where he served as chief operating officer and vice president, clinical strategy for the HCA Clinical Services Group. Dr. Baggett was responsible for providing leadership in the creation and execution of strategies to improve safety, quality and clinical performance. He served as the central point of contact for all major HCA national managed care accounts that addressed clinical performance, centers of excellence and distinction. Dr. Baggett was also instrumental in the development of an enterprise strategy that improved HCA performance on aggregate core measure clinical performance scores. Prior to that, Dr. Baggett served as an internal strategic business consultant for HCA, charged with developing and implementing service line strategies that included improving the quality of cardiac care and the development of a system to quantify ambulatory volumes and financial performance.

Dr. Baggett received a medical degree from East Carolina University, a master’s of public health degree from Johns Hopkins University, a master’s of business administration from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed his residency and internship at Yale University School of Medicine and is board certified in internal medicine. Dr. Baggett completed advanced training as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and as a general internal medicine fellow at the Duke University School of Medicine.

Tenet Healthcare Corporation is a health care services company whose subsidiaries and affiliates own and operate acute care hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and diagnostic imaging centers. Tenet's hospitals and related health care facilities are committed to providing high quality care to patients in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit www.tenethealth.com.

Some of the statements in this release may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on our current expectations and could be affected by numerous factors and are subject to various risks and uncertainties discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2008, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and periodic reports on Form 8-K. Do not rely on any forward-looking statement, as we cannot predict or control many of the factors that ultimately may affect our ability to achieve the results estimated. We make no promise to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of changes in underlying factors, new information, future events or otherwise.