BROOKSVILLE — Deputies last week arrested a doctor after they said he attacked his on-again, off-again girlfriend while on duty at Oak Hill Hospital in an incident that included him pushing her down the stairs. According to a statement from Access Health Care Physicians, the doctor was the practice's chief of medicine at Oak Hill.

Rashid Ismail Saba, 48, of Land O' Lakes, was arrested on a dating violence charge after an investigation into the incident, which occurred in May, according to the Hernando County Sheriff's Office.

The argument started when Saba demanded that the victim, a nurse at the hospital, hand over her cell phone so he could see who she'd been contacting, according to an arrest affidavit. The two argued, he ordered her into a stairwell, threw her phone down the stairs, the report said, and when she tried to pick it up, he pushed her down the stairs.

Saba continued to grab and shake the victim at the bottom of the stairs, deputies said.

According to the affidavit, Saba later told a former partner, who also works at the hospital, that he pushed the victim.

Saba denied pushing her in a deposition earlier this month, the report said.

The incident was immediately reported to hospital administrators, deputies said, who have since removed Saba from seeing patients.

After his arrest, he was taken to the Hernando County Detention Center. He was released Aug. 23 on $2,000 bond.