1. You want to make a difference
If you want to be proud of what you do – that you made a difference in patient’s lives – medical assisting can be a rewarding career for you. As an MA you’ll work side-by-side with doctors and nurses who are helping people to get well and stay healthy.
2. You want to work with people
In a physician’s office you are at the front line of health care. Medical assistants are the ones who work hands-on with patients, so whether it’s scheduling appointments and greeting patients, checking vital signs, removing sutures, drawing blood, or providing information and reassurance – you spend every day doing work that is worthwhile.
3. You want job security with a career that’s in demand
As the population ages and more people use non-emergency medical care, there is a growing demand for healthcare professionals like medical assistants. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the medical assisting workforce is projected to grow by 29% between 2012-2022. This means you will have a great opportunity to find employment once you finish school. Once you have your qualification, all you need is the right attitude and the flexibility to look beyond your immediate neighborhood in order to secure your first job.
4. You want career options and choices
Because Medical Assistants are trained in billing and coding, administrative, and clinical work they have many more options when it comes to finding a job. But more than this, medical assistants can specialize in front office or back labs, learn limited x-ray, or stay generalists. You can work for a physician’s office or in a clinic attached to a larger hospital. You also choose to work with different kinds of physicians from pediatric to geriatric, from neurologist to podiatrist.
5. You want good working hours
If you have children or other dependents at home, working hours might be an important consideration for you. As a medical assistant you are likely to be working in an office environment so, compared to some health professions, this means more chance of normal office hours, Monday to Friday, rather than weekends and night-shifts.
6. You want to do interesting work
Being a medical assistant is never boring! A doctor’s office is always full of activity, with a variety of patients and cases to deal with each day. You will have the opportunity to learn additional clinical skills and knowledge, and you will also be improving your professional skills, like communication, listening, empathy and customer service.
7. You want opportunities for learning and personal growth
Medical Assisting can be a career in itself or it can be a stepping-stone on your career path. It can give you a foot in the door while you pursue your degree in a related healthcare career such as nursing or medical imaging. Or you might want to work your way up to management and run a medical office yourself. There are lots of opportunities for growth in this role.
SIMTICS offers online education resources for learning the clinical skills you need to know as a medical assistant. The SIMTICS Medical Assisting suite covers 18 different clinical procedures from performing an EKG and taking vital signs, to administering injections and assisting with minor surgery. Each SIMTICS module has online simulations so you can learn and practice the procedure interactively, plus a video, text description, quizzes, and anatomical model. The SIMTICS logbook tracks study time, scores and errors in the simulations. For more information, go to http://www.simtics.com or email [email protected].
