Starting Your Career as a Medical Assistant

To find a job in the field of Medical Assistant, you need to be certified from American Association of Medical Assistant. When it comes to job duties of Medical Assistant, the individual should be able to handle many tasks like: Answering phone calls, speaking with patients over the phone or in person, being detail oriented, to be able to move fast, having enough knowledge of medical terminologies, to be able to provide minor tasks before doctor visits the patients, check blood pressure of patient, do injection or take blood out of vein, showing that he/she knows her job so that patients won’t get frustrated or furious, computer knowledge, data entry and so on…

According to International Standard Classification and Occupation medical assistants training should be based on competent performance in their job. Normally, the one who applies for medical assistant needs a diploma, which takes around one year to get it. The courses that needs to be passed in order to become a Medical Assistant are included of medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, and programs may include a clinical internship wherein the student works as a medical assistant in a medical clinic.

Medical Assistants’ performances are varied in different health group categories. For example a dentist medical assistant should be well aware of different dental products, what needs to be prepared for doctors based on the activities that doctor needs to follow for that particular patient, for rout canal the items are hand piece, a specific dental gel, anesthesia. For Bridge, other tools. Particularly dental assistants should wash and clean the dental products that doctors reuse for other patients.

Now, lets look at the Medical Assistant in an emergency room. After the triage, medical assistants’ job is to call patients and check their vital signs, blood pressure, verifying medications the patient takes and gather all of these information and put them in the system. The next duty is to check to see if the patient is capable of walking or not. If he/she is not able to walk then the Medical Assistant needs to bring appropriate chair to handle the patient into specific part. And then since they put the patient on bed they have to check their vital signs constantly. The Medical Assistant for an eye doctor follows the similar instruction but under different category, like: Doing work up jobs, checking patient’s history, putting drops in patient’s eyes, checking patient’s vision, and creating a report to submit to doctor.

As it is obvious all Medical Assistants follow the same routine: Helping doctors, and patients in order to get a better result from visit. One other important job of Medical Assistant is that they have to instruct patients about medications and side effects. The extremely need to be cautious about drug prescriptions. They should ask patients to call if they need some assistant. They also have to have the information about the services that other facilities provide if patient needs to be referred to. Some facilities also allow Medical Assistant to do X-Ray and draw blood.

Because Medical Assistants are under the supervision of doctors and physicians they need to be well informed about their jurisdictions, for the reason that if they take one step beyond their job territory they may harm patients and that can cause an unrecompensable damage to the clinic or hospital. As far as the statistic concerns, in 2012 almost 508,680 people worked in this field and most of them were in either medical clinics or physicians’ office.

The average wage for this job was reported 26,370 in may of 2012. The average job growth is predicted 29 percent from year 2012 until 2022 and the reason is the growth of baby boomers aging has created a big demand for this job.

But the four important skills:

Analytical Skills

A Medical Assistant should be able to read medical charts related to patients, they need to have an absolute comprehension about patient’s medical history and his/her current status conformed in patient’s chart. They also need to be able to read the codes for billing.

Detailed Oriented

Medical assistant needs to be accurate about the test they take from patients, physicians and insurance companies are relying on those tests.

Interpersonal Skills

Medical Assistant should be able to speak calmly with patients and find out about his/her health history, whether the patient has been to other facilities or not. All of these requires a high level of interpersonal skill.

Technical Skills

Using appropriate instrument in order to take vital sign, blood pressure, and draw blood from patient is another top skill option under the Medical Assistant category. After reviewing all of educational aspects and duties related to Medical Assistant field; knowing the different sub-categories under the Medical Assistant job will help to expand this title and also gives a better understanding of wide range of Medical Assistant category. Jobs like: Dental Hygienist, Licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses, Medical Record and Health information techniques, nursing assistant and orderlies, occupational assistant therapy and Aids, pharmacy technician, and psychiatric technicians and Aids.

Go here to learn more on how to become a medical assistant.

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