Michael Pagano is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Fairfield University, Connecticut. After serving as an Army corpsman in Vietnam, he became a Physician Assistant-Certified (PA-C). While working in Emergency Departments, he went to graduate school and earned an MA in English and a PhD in Communication with a focus in health communication. Over the past 40 years he has practiced as a PA-C and combined patient care with his passion for teaching and his interest in exploring health communication from consumer-provider, provider education, and health care organizational communication perspectives. Currently, he teaches a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate health, organizational, and interpersonal communication courses, including interdisciplinary health studies courses for health professions students.