Michael Pagano was born and raised in Oklahoma. He was a medic in the army and served for a year with the First Air Cavalry Division in Viet Nam. After his military service, he earned a BA at Oklahoma University in premed and English, and then a BS as a Physician Assistant at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City. He returned several years later to OU in Norman and received an M.A. in English and a Ph.D. in Communication with a focus on Health Communication.
He revised his dissertation into his first book, "Communicating Effectively in Medical Records: A Guide for Physicians." And he also co-authored a book with Dr. Sandra Ragan, "Communication Skills for Professional Nurses." He served as the inaugural Professor and Chair of the Physician Assistant (PA) Program at the University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School, now the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago, IL. Michael also established the one of the first M.A. Programs for practicing PAs.
He moved from Illinois to New York in 1994 and worked for nearly a decade as an Associate Creative Director for Lyons Lavey Nickel Swift a top ten medical advertising agency. Concurrently, he taught as an adjunct for Cornell University in New York City and in 2003 he started teaching at Fairfield University in Fairfield, CT. Today he is an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Communication at Fairfield University.
He has published two more books, "Interactive Case Studies in Health Communication" in 2009 and "Authoring Patient Records: An Interactive Guide" in 2010, both with with Jones and Bartlett Publishers. He has also published numerous journal articles, including "Conflict of Interest, Bias, and Manipulation: Reassessing Prescriber Education and the Learned Intermediary Doctrine" in the Communication Law Review, 2010. Michael is married to Canera, has two sons, Brian and Anthony, a granddaughter-Caitlin, and enjoys teaching, writing, and playing golf.
