Endoscopy Center, doctors settle cancer suit

By Marshall Allen (contact)

Friday, March 21, 2008 | 2 a.m.

A lawsuit has been settled that claimed a doctor at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada — the source of the largest hepatitis C scare in the nation — missed a man’s cancer during a hastily performed colonoscopy.

Kevin Rexford, a 46-year-old pharmacist, said Dr. Clifford Carrol, one of the clinic’s owners, missed an obvious colon cancer diagnosis three years ago. The alleged failure allowed the cancer to spread throughout his body and he now has only about a 10 percent chance of living five more years. Rexford is married with two young children.

The settlement came March 13, a day after the Sun published a story about the lawsuit.

Attorney Dan Carvalho, who represents Rexford, said he could not disclose the amount of the settlement. But a source familiar with the case said it was $2 million, the maximum amount of insurance carried by Carrol, the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada and the Gastroenterology Center of Nevada, an affiliated medical practice.

“The underlying case had tremendous merit,” Carvalho said. “The discovery revealed that they fraudulently billed my client and it revealed that if this case were to proceed to trial there would have been a verdict in my client’s favor and it would have been substantial.”

Experts who were paid to review the case on Rexford’s behalf said Carrol took only three minutes — half the minimum recommended time — to examine Rexford’s colon for cancer during a Jan. 28, 2005, procedure. His missed diagnosis allowed the cancer to progress to an incurable stage, the experts said.

Consultant Arthur Shorr, who is board certified in health care administration, noted that Carrol said in his testimony that no one at the clinic ever monitored his procedures. Shorr said this responsibility would fall on the clinic’s majority owner and medical director, Dr. Dipak Desai. But Desai said in his deposition that he never reviewed the Rexford case, or others.

“This behavior demonstrates a conscious and willful disregard for the safety and well-being of the community at large and for all subsequent patients treated by Dr. Carrol since notice of the missed diagnosis,” Shorr wrote in his report.

Attorney Sherman Bennett, who is representing Carrol, did not return a call for comment.