Medical Assistants – A Brief Introduction

By Author: WilliamBarnes WilliamBarnes
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Medical assistants are the non licensed allied health occupation that perform both administrative as well as clinical task in order to support the physician’s work and other health related professionals. Medical assistants usually perform routine tasks and procedures which may include measuring vital signs of patients, giving medications and injections, recording all the information in the medical record keeping system, carefully handling all the medical instruments and supplies, and collecting as well as preparing the entire specimen of body fluids for laboratory testing. Thus, medical assistants act as a keystone of physician agencies. Medical assistants do a lot of work to ensure that business offices of doctors run smoothly without any hassle. Medical assistant’s daily obligation changes in a big way from time to time and depends a lot on the doctor’s specialization as well as size of the practice. Being into the profession of medical assistant, requires a lot care and nurturing of all the people in and around the clinic.

Offices that are small in size medical assistants usually perform a lot of tasks including ...
... both administration and clinical responsibilities at the same time, concentrating on a particular area of field under the guidance of the doctor. Whereas in big practices, medical assistants have to focus on limited areas only relating to practice in which they are working.

Medical assistant is one of the fastest growing industries at the present and is predicted to be one of the most sought professions. There is no specific teaching or preparation required so as to become a medical assistant. Anyone who wants to become and get a chance to become a medical assistant may become one without any difficulty.

There are a significant number of vocational technical high schools, post secondary vocational schools, community and junior schools that offer medical assistant certification plans. One may choose any type of plan as per their need and requirement. However, as per the guidelines, post secondary programs last either

One year and result into diploma or certification and if one wants to pursue more sophisticated education then one may go for
Year pal and at the same time gain an associate degree.

In addition to this, certain skills required to become a medical assistant are listed below:

Must has a high school graduation degree certificate
Has to be enrolled with the commission on accreditation of allied health education programs
Must clear the CMA examination under the full guidance of American Association of medical Assistants.
Must take the on the job training during the CMA certification course.
Well versed with computer and knows all the basic functions.
Must be acquainted with electronic health record software.
Last but not the least, must be accountable, adaptable, hard working and keen to learn.

In fact, there are numerous health universities and institutions that provide both online and offline world class education, certification and training in this field. One has to choose among the various available options as per their budget and other need and requirements.

St Augustine School of Medical Assistants
offers a nationally accredited and certified Medical Assistant program online. St Augustine School of Medical Assistants is fully accredited and certified by The National Accreditation and Certification Board (NACB) a national professional health accreditation organization. St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants is also nationally certified for online delivery of a Medical Assistant distance education program.