The photograph posted on Facebook showed a grinning physician assistant, Leo Caamano, holding a syringe at a man’s neck.

“When you can’t start a line in a junkie’s arm … go for the neck!” the caption read.

It was part of a photo album on his Facebook page called “Bloddy (sic) Mess,” and by Friday it had been removed.

Caamano, who works at the Open Door Family Medical Center in Port Chester, acknowledged that he had posted the gory pictures of himself performing procedures on patients.

“It was poor judgment at that time,” he said.

The pictures were not taken at the Open Door center, and officials there said they did not know where they were from. They would not make Caamano’s resume available.

Chief Operations Officer Anita Wilenkin declined to say what disciplinary measures, if any, Caamano would face.

“The answer is we have spoken to him, we are taking appropriate action with him and my understanding is all of the postings have been brought down,” Wilenkin said.

In neither of the photographs provided to The Journal News were the patients identifiable.

Wilenkin and Desta Lakew, the director of development, both said repeatedly that the people shown were not patients at the Open Door clinic. Asked whether they would report the incident, Wilenkin said: “Based on our assessment, this is not something that I would believe is a reportable thing.” She said it was not a violation of their patients’ rights.

Caamano has never been disciplined by the state, according to the state Department of Health. The Office of Professional Medical Conduct investigates complaints brought against physicians or physician assistants but does not comment unless charges are brought, said Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman for the Department of Health.

As of Friday, Caamano’s profile photo for his Facebook page also had been deleted. It showed him giving the finger.

In often irreverent comments posted with the other photographs , Caamano describes one procedure as dialysis access and repair in which he must remove a catheter.

“So you have to compress until it stops otherwise it sprays all over like a fire hose. It wouldn’t stop and I was even suturing the opening to help close it but as you can see I can’t compress and tie at the same time so I just kept getting blasted with blood. Everyone thought it was funny so they took pictures. We’re just so mad-cap I say!”

“Are you serious?” asks another poster. “Lol” (laughing out loud).

And, she adds, “Isn’t this a HIPPA violation?” a reference to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which sets out rules for patients’ privacy.

Caamano would not say where he was working at the time. He notes in his comments that he had held three jobs in less than a year. “That I do not want to answer,” he said when asked why.

Caamano was interviewed for MarketWatch in 2007 about why he had chosen to become a physician assistant instead of a physician. He had wanted to be a doctor, according to the article, but did not believe he could raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed for a medical degree. He also worried about the high cost of malpractice insurance, the article said.

“If I can do everything a doctor does, notably taking care of people, why not?” he was quoted as saying.

Caamano is not the first medical professional to get in trouble over Facebook.

An emergency medical technician in New York City lost his job in the spring after putting up photos of a murder victim who had been strangled with a hair dryer. Mark Musarella worked for Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island.

In September, a doctor training at SUNY Upstate Medical University posted a color photo showing the top of a patient’s head cut open, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported. The hospital conducted an inquiry and said the picture probably was not of one of its brain surgery patients; the doctor, Donald Blaskiewicz, said he has taken it off the Internet.

And now Puerto Rican doctors in Haiti to assist earthquake victims are under investigation after posing with guns, smiling next to a coffin, drinking beer and holding a saw next to a victim’s leg.

Open Door officials said Friday that they would remind all employees about the pitfalls of social networking.

“Obviously we will take all the measures that we can within our role as the employer in educating our staff in the use of social-networking platforms,” Lakew said.

Said Wilenkin in a statement : “Open Door is deeply committed to privacy for both its patients and employees. We take this very seriously and include this not only in our formal code of conduct but also incorporate it into ongoing orientation and education programs on privacy and confidentiality.”