Medical Assistant Training

Though there are no state laws or regulations which state that formal training is mandatory to work in this field but it will definitely help. Your resume will look much better if you have a diploma, certification or an associates’ degree in medical assistant. There are few employers who train their own medical assistants, but due to heavy demand and work pressure, this practice is becoming rare and rare. Now-a-days, most of the employers prefer to take trained or rather certified medical assistants due to the fact that trained and certified medical assistants are efficient and can understand and handle the patients well.

Preparing for Medical training:

A medical assistant is expected to have a high school diploma or GED whether he/she is trained by the employer or attend medical assistant school on self. If you want to become a medical assistant, start the preparation right from high school itself. Enrolling in courses like biology, anatomy, mathematics, book keeping, typing and office procedures will help you get a clear idea on medical career training.

Where can you apply for medical training?

Medical training is offered at vocational-technical high schools, junior and community colleges and post secondary vocational schools. Different schools offer different types of medical assistant training programs including medical training, administrative training and clerical training.

 Diploma, certificate or Associates’ Degree!! Which program should you select?

You can complete a diploma degree or certificate in medical assisting in just one year. This is a good option if you are focusing completely on medical career training. This program just concentrates on medical training and nothing else. This is also a cheaper program when compared to 2 year program and completes in shorter time.

However, getting associates’ degree is the best option for medical assistants. As per the statistics of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, getting associates’ degree is the best option to succeed as a medical assistant.

These days’ employers are preferring people with higher education. Having an associate’s degree in medical assisting will definitely give you a cutting edge over those who have one year certificate or diploma degrees in medical assistant.

Hence always prefer to go for a 2 year Associate’s degree if you are not much worried about time and money as this will definitely help you in future.

What kind of training is given in training schools and what kind training do you require

The medical assistants training can typically be classified into 3 types

1.       Administrative

2.       Clerical

3.       Clinical

Training completely depends upon the type of program chosen by the medical assistant. However, medical assistants are expected to be flexible and may require very diverse skills hence they are given a brief idea about other programs along with their main program. A medical assistant is trained in first aid, anatomy, health and pharmaceutical procedures, medical terminology to prepare for clinical requirements, office procedures, patient relations, medical ethics and medical law to prepare for administrative requirements of employer. Hence a medical assistant training includes everything that can prepare you for clinical, administrative requirements of the employer.