Virginia Board of Medicine Reprimands Doctor Who Missed Rectal Cancer
In January 2008 a Fairfax County jury awarded one of Dr. Alan Joshua’s patients $1 million after Dr. Joshua failed to act on repeated complaints of rectal bleeding and other symptoms of rectal cancer. (This case was handled by attorney Ben Glass.)
After the verdict to Virginia Board of medicine investigated the case and in an order dated October 9, 2009 the Board reprimanded Dr. Joshua. The board found that Dr. Joshua violated sections of Virginia law in failing to diagnose the rectal cancer by, in part, failing to perform a rectal examination or referring the patient to a specialist.
According to the order, Dr. Joshua “stated to the committee that he no longer performs anoscopy or flexible sigmoidoscopy… [and that he] has reviewed literature regarding rectal cancer and that he readily refers patients with similar complaints for subspecialty evaluation.”
You can read the Virginia Board of medicine’s order reprimanding Dr. Joshua here.