* Tenet CEO-weakness in U.S. economy not hurting business

* Tenet not seeing classic signs of a recession

* Tenet has not seen deterioration in credit of patients

(Adds background, further CEO comment)

By Bill Berkrot

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chief executive of hospital chain operator Tenet Healthcare Corp (THC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday his company is in a growth phase and has not been hurt by the weakness in the U.S. economy that has hit so many companies across a wide variety of business sectors.

"We have looked hard for indications that there are effects coming out of the overall weakness in the economy that are hurting our business, and it's actually hard to find them," Trevor Fetter told Reuters in an interview.

"Our earnings have steadily grown; our margin has expanded; we've now had two quarters in a row of positive admissions growth. Those are the metrics that are most important for assessing that we're in a growth path," Fetter said.

"The kind of classic things you would expect to see if you were having a recession right now, we're not seeing," he said.