Dr. Pruett began his academic career at the University of Virginia rising from Assistant Professor of Surgery (1987) to Professor of Surgery and Division Chief of Transplantation Surgery by 1996. He was the Program Director of the transplantation training program at University of Virginia. As an intensivist, he established and was Program Director of the Critical Care Training program. In 2009, he moved to the University of Minnesota as Professor of Surgery and Internal Medicine, Chief of Transplantation and the John S. Najarian Surgical Chair in Clinical Transplantation.