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What is Medical Assisting?
One of the fastest growing areas of employment in the country today is the job of medical assisting. A well trained medical assistant is an indispensable part of the medical industry. The relatively brief length of time enrolled in formal education and subsequent training required make this particular vocation a very popular one. When compared with other professional areas of medicine and psychiatry, medical assisting takes a relatively short time to go from diploma to payday.
In fact, nearly any medical or psychiatric facility you can name requires the support of from one to literally dozens of fully trained medical aides at any given time. Your local doctor’s office is likely to have at least one assistant working directly with the nurse in charge, one assistant working with his medical records, and yet another working with patients or at the front desk even if it is a relatively small office. Larger offices and clinics may employ a dozen or more.
Duties they perform will range from taking direct orders from the doctor or the nurse, taking vital signs from the patient, logging patient data into patient charts, drawing blood, assisting in radiology and a plethora of other assorted and diversified duties. Even dental offices employ assistants to prepare patients for procedures, to perform duties as instructed by the dentist, work with prosthetics and many other various tasks during a typical day.
Medical support services are the underlying foundation in any health facility. In hospitals they will be found in the emergency room, on every patient floor, in the laboratory, in radiology, even in pathology and all other areas of the facility. Although there are general medical aides, the majority have usually been specially trained for a particular area. From working with newborns, to cosmetic surgery patients, you are sure to find a trained medical assistant everywhere you look.
Medical support makes an excellent stepping stone to higher medical goals and is also a fine career in and of itself. Many physicians, registered nurses, and physicians assistants started out as medical aids in their chosen field. Spending some time working in several varied fields of medicine can build a base of knowledge and experience that cannot be acquired in any other way. There is simply no substitute for hands-on experience with real patients. In this fast growing area of health the projections are excellent for jobs in virtually all fields of specialization.