Clinic welcomes new physician’s assistant

Physicians Assistant/Clinician Mike Meno has joined the staff at the Wahkiakum Family Practice Clinic. Photo by Sunny Manary.

The Wahkiakum Family Practice Clinic’s family has grown. Mike Meno, Physicians Assistant/Clinician (PAC) joined the clinic the first week of September.

Meno received his education and training in Portland where he practiced at Bess Kaiser for three and a half years in the ER. He is trained to do everything from pediatrics to X-Rays. “Everything but obstetrics,” he said.

Meno became certified to practice medicine in 1973. In 1974, he began working in Astoria until 1988. From then until 2002, Meno worked in the Long Beach Peninsula area sometimes traveling back and forth between there and Astoria.

For a time in 2002, Meno worked in different areas up and down the west coast working as a “locum tenen” or fill in, in clinics from Everett to the Navajo Nation in Arizona. He returned to Astoria in 2003 to work with Dr. Thomas Duncan and Midwife/Nurse Sue Skinner, where he remained until the end of August 2007.

PA’s do not go to medical school; they receive on the job training that allows them to perform many of the same tasks a doctor does. The difference is, the PA has a doctor to fall back on if they need help or have any questions.

At the time of Meno’s training in the early 1970s, there was a perceived doctor shortage. It was thought that being a PA would be a good way to get medical services and extend a physician to the public.

“In some places, we were called physician extenders,” Meno said. “Now to get into the training programs, you have to have at least a bachelor’s degree, or be degree eligible by the time the program is over.”

Meno is not called “doctor.” When patients come to see him, he said people call him Mr. Meno or Mike, which is what he prefers, but for those patients who prefer a more formal relationship, Mr. Meno is fine.

In the early day’s of his career, he was certified but since then, the laws have changed in Washington and Oregon. Insurance companies didn’t want to deal with an “unlicensed” individual. Physicians and PA’s are licensed. Nurse Practitioners are licensed; however, they are under the nursing board, which is a separate authority than PA’s.

PA’s are dependent practitioners. “We have to have a linkage with a physician,” he said. They can do everything a doctor does with a patient, yet the doctor doesn’t have to be over their shoulder. They don’t even have to be in the same building, Meno said. They just need the communication capabilities with the sponsoring physician.

Janice McClean, M.D., is Meno’s sponsor. The Board of Medical Licensing must approve the relationship. As long as the board is comfortable with his treatments of patients, it works. But Meno said he won’t perform something he isn’t comfortable with.

He won’t put McClean’s or his license in jeopardy, or the best interest of the patient.

Having fun with the patients can be the best part of the job. “I want them to be relaxed,” he said. The more at ease a patient is, the more they will get out of the appointment.

There are always times when it is important to be serious, Meno said. “But that time isn’t 100 percent. When I need to be 100 percent serious, believe me, I can be.” He added that it doesn’t matter the age of the patients.

Meno said he is different than the average practitioner. “I’m loud, and I joke with the patients,” he said. “It’s nothing for me to tell someone in their mid 80s they are older than dirt,” but he said he does it good naturedly so he doesn’t offend. “I may be just as quick to say something about me. I love what I do.”

Over the course of his career, Meno has worked with many doctors, but considers McClean one of the best. “She’s outstanding!” he said.