The Different Roles Played By Medical Assistants

Curious about what Medical Assisting is? In the present day, medical assistants are one of the fastest growing professions in the health care industry. Figures show that this career is expected to increase for the next ten years due to the advancement of medical equipment and the increase number of population around the world.

Becoming a medical assistant is very easy for it only needs a high school diploma or a GED equivalent and there is no formal lessons or training requirements needed unlike other career such as nursing. Aspiring medical assistants must only undergo programs which will only take six months to two years to accomplish.

The program for medical assisting includes the elemental medical vocabulary, anatomy and physiology and other administrative training like recordkeeping, bookkeeping, transcription, and so on and so forth.

Program courses are exclusively intended to give them a general context in medical field to help them carry out their task prolifically and effectively. This is because medical assistants' nature of work is to perform or to keep medical establishments organized and to keep it running smoothly. Also, since medical assistants will constantly interact in almost all people in the hospitals even with the patients, their program courses also include patient relations, values and medical laws.

Although, some of the roles of medical assistants are identical a physician assistant or a nurse, they are very different. Medical assistants carry out secretarial and clinical responsibilities while nurses are more on treatments and patient management.

In the main a medical assistant handles administrative duties and or clinical duties.

1 . Administrative Tasks

- Taking telephone calls
- Serve patients and families
- Planning of appointments
- Fiscal recording and billing
- Bookkeeping
- Handling correspondence
- Filing and updating patient's medical records
- Handles medical coverage forms
- Arranging hospital admissions
- Assisting in laboratory services

2. Clinical Duties and Tasks
- Taking patient's health history
- Recording patient's vital signs
- Preparing patients for medical examinations
- Assisting doctors in health examinations
- Explaining to patients the procedures that are to be done to them
- Collects and prepares the laboratory specimens
- Buying medical materials and equipments
- Disposing of infected medical materials
- Preparing medical instruments
- Making sure that hospital accommodation such as waiting rooms and examination rooms are clean and tidy

In some hospitals medical assistants are allowed, under the custody of doctors to carry out elemental medical tasks such as:
- Basic laboratory tests
- Prepare medications and administer medications as well
- Instructing patients in taking medications and some diets
- Drug refills
- Draw blood
- Changing of dressings
- Removing sutures

Since medical assistants have a large scope of tasks, they should at all times stay focused and organized. They must possess pleasing personality and must be good communicators for they must make the patients feel comfy and at ease before and or during examination. Also, medical assistants must be clean and well groomed for they should look presentable when dealing with patients.

Duties and tasks of medical assistants vary depending in the hospitals they work. In average hospitals o r clinics they are to perform both administrative and clinical duties while in extensive hospitals where there are other medical staff, medical assistants are encouraged to performed specific responsibilities under the guardianship of the department administrators.

Regardless where medical assistants work, they are very expedient in helping healthcare workers to perform their jobs more effectively and prolifically. As a consequence, the growing needs of people's medical attention are met through them.