Medical Assistant Student Notes - A Blast From The Past

I attended the medical assisting vocational training program at Porter and Chester Vocational Training Institute in 1998 to become a fully qualified medical assistant. At that time, Porter and Chester had a campus in Stratford, Watertown, Enfield, and Weathersfield, Connecticut and Chicopee, Massachusetts, only one of many accredited schools in my area. Their program focuses on the clinical and administrative skills of this occupation. 

I sat for the Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) certification exam conducted by the AAMA immediately upon my successful graduation from the program, which had earned me my Medical Assistant diploma. 

I just found some of my old study notes and decided to scan some of them into my PC. Here is my illustration of the muscular system, anterior view (front).

Muscular system, anterior view

Muscular system, posterior view

I especially enjoyed anatomy and physiology (A & P) and medical terminology class. I took elaborate notes and added artful illustrations. My instructor was always very impressed and often annotated my work with excellent, and have you considered going into medical illustration.

The shoulder joint (illustration)

 Another subject I truly enjoyed was medical transcription and practicing writing our own clinical notes in different formats, such as the SOAP note. Here are a couple of my SOAP note writing exercises, corrected by my instructor. Those who wish to learn a bit more about SOAP note writing can check my website at http://www.medicalassistant.net/Skills/soap_note.html. 

Taking the Medical Assistant Certification Exam?

If you are a medical assistant preparing for the medical assistant certification exam here are some insights and tips:

Most medical assistants with formal training and recognized medical assistant credentials behind their name wind up doing quite well upon graduation. Many land jobs that they would probably not have gotten otherwise. The competition on today's job market is high... everybody wants to land a better job. There are many affordable certification exams offered, which cover a broad range of medical assisting areas of knowledge to assure proficiency and competency in different areas of medical assisting.

These medical assistant certification exams usually test knowledge on many areas of clinical and administrative skills, which also includes medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, clinical lab procedures, pharmacology, document processing and management, healthcare law and ethics, and medical coding and billing questions, to name just a few. Here are some REAL live medical assistant certification exam study tips, strategies, and example questions for those preparing for the medical assistant certification exam.

---