UAMS Names Knight Chairman of Department of Family and Preventive Medicine
| LITTLE ROCK – Daniel A. Knight, M.D., with more than two decades of experience in family medicine, has been named the new chairman of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Medicine.
Knight, an associate professor with tenure who has been on the UAMS faculty since 1989, has served as acting chairman of the department since June 2008 and previously for a period in 2006-2007. His new appointment is effective July 1.
“Dr. Knight’s experience as a family physician in private practice and an emergency room physician – even while serving as a volunteer faculty member at UAMS – demonstrated his commitment to both patients and academic medicine,” said UAMS College of Medicine Dean Debra H. Fiser, M.D. “As a full-time faculty member, he’s proved invaluable in helping our family medicine program gain full accreditation in 2002 and serving recently as acting chairman.”
Knight received his medical degree in 1985 from the UAMS College of Medicine. He completed his family medicine residency at UAMS, serving as chief resident from 1987-1988.
From 1989-1999, Knight was a volunteer faculty in the UAMS Department of Family and Preventive Medicine while serving as a family physician and an emergency room physician in central Arkansas. He joined the UAMS faculty full time as an assistant professor in 1999 and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2005.
During his tenure at UAMS, Knight served as director of the College of Medicine’s family medicine resident physician training program. He directed a revision of the family medicine residency program that led to full accreditation status by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. This was followed by a four-year re-accreditation of the program in 2006.
Knight serves on numerous College of Medicine and UAMS committees and on the board of the Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians. He has received several Red Sash Awards for teaching students and the College of Medicine Residency Educator Award in 2007. Other honors include the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors’ 2007 Program Director Silver Recognition Award.
He is a diplomate of the American Board of Family Practice and a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a new 540,000-square-foot hospital, six centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has 2,652 students and 733 medical residents. Its centers of excellence include the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, including nearly 1,150 physicians who provide medical care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS’ Area Health Education Centers throughout the state. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com.