What Should Medical Assistant Students Learn?

The nature of a medical assistant's workplace today is different from that of the past. It is characterized by competition, cultural diversity, new technologies, and new management processes that require critical thinking, problem-solving and communication skills as well as advanced levels of various complex job skills.

Medical assistant students should be taught more than just skills related to a basic secretarial job and never become a "Girl-Friday" for the doctor on the clinical floors. Medical assistant students should be taught in all aspects of administrative and clinical skills, and be exposed to advanced interpersonal and resume writing skills which will prepare them for the demands and versatility needed to assist doctors and various other licensed health care providers, and land the better jobs.

Medical assistant programs need to provide health and medical skills education in clinical lab classrooms where they take on the role of working medical assistants and patients to practice skills they need. They should role-play scenarios to learn how to run the front and back office efficiently and productively.

Stay in Medical Assisting or Move On to Nursing?

Those who have worked in the medical assistant profession for some years often wonder if they should go on and become a nurse, or continue in the medical assisting field for much less pay than they would earn in nursing. Not surprisingly, many opt to stay, not because of the money (there is a huge difference between the medical assistant's wages and that of a nurse), but because of the strong relationships they have forged with the doctors, other healthcare staff, and with their patients, which almost always is long term.

To learn more about the medical assisting career please visit Medical Assistant NET on the Web.