Doctor allegedly missed a brain tumor. Kentucky medical panel suspends his license.
A state board has suspended the license of a doctor who allegedly misread medical images, including missing a brain tumor in one patient.
The suspension for Dr. Anand P. Lalaji was effective Nov. 16, according to the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure.
Lalaji’s attorney, Richard Walter, said Lalaji is challenging the suspension and will file a request for a hearing.
“Dr. Lalaji has always maintained that he has complied with the appropriate and applicable standard of care relative to the studies he reviews and looks forward to the fair hearing process,” Walter said.
Lalaji’s area of practice is diagnostic radiology, using imaging procedures such as X-rays, CT scans and MRIs to assess or diagnose a patient’s condition.
Lalaji finished medical school in 1998 at the State University of New York at Brooklyn and has his office in Atlanta, but has a telemedicine practice, according to the state Board of Medical Licensure.
The report that resulted in the board’s move to suspend his license came from Mercy Health Lourdes, a hospital in Paducah.
The hospital reported that it suspended Lalaji’s privileges in August 2022 over concerns about incorrect or missed image readings in eight cases between June 13 and Aug. 6, including the brain tumor, according to the medical licensure board complaint and suspension order.
Lalaji told a hospital executive some of the issues arose from technical problems from the quick implementation of radiology coverage at the hospital; that some cases would not have occurred if not for communication delays that had been resolved; and some from doing a high volume of readings in a short time in order to meet coverage needs.
Lalaji said he was confident the issues had been resolved, according to the Board of Medical Licensure documents.
The hospital lifted his suspension in September 2022, but suspended him again in November 2022 from reading images. A hospital committee “expressed great concern for patient safety,” according to the order.
Lalaji said he would fix the issues, but concerns remained and in January 2023 a committee recommended terminating his staff appointment and clinical privileges.
The committee said Lalaji had “inaccurately, incompletely and otherwise improperly read multiple diagnostic films, tests and other procedures . . . .”
A consultant who looked at charts on 10 patients for the Board of Medical Licensure said all 10 represented a deviation from the proper standard of care.
The consultant said all people make mistakes, but it was concerning that Lalaji seemed to have a large number of incorrect interpretations of images in a relatively short time.
Lalaji contested the findings in several cases but the consultant did not change his opinion.
