Role Of Medical Assistants

In the ambulatory care setting, the most important allied health professional is the medical assistant. The medical assistant, performing both administrative and clinical tasks under the direction of the physician, is a critical link between patient and physician. The medical assistant serves in many capacities receptionist, secretary, transcriptionist, bookkeeper, insurance coder and biller, patient educator, and clinical assistant.

The latter requires the medical assistant to be able to administer injections and perform venipuncture, prepare patients for examinations provide better diabetes diet, assist the physician with examinations and special procedures, and perform electrocardiography and various laboratory tests. Medical assistants triage and assess patient needs when scheduling appointments and tests. However, while medical assistants have a range of responsibilities, it is critical that they perform only within the scope of their training and personal capabilities and always function within ethical and legal boundaries.

Because medical assistants are often the patient's first contact with the facility and its physicians, a positive attitude is important. They must be excellent communicators, both verbally and nonverbally, and project a professional image of themselves and their physician-employer. Medical assistants who believe in their work, who are proud of their career, and who convey compassion and caring provide a positive experience for patients who may be ill or in a great deal of discomfort.

Value of Medical Assistant to a Health Care Team

Value Of Medical Assistant

With their broad range of competencies in both administrative and clinical areas, medical assistants are increasingly valued as health care team members. Medical assistants are the great communicators, serving as liaison between physician and hospital staff and between physician and any number of allied and other health professionals. Because they are the first providers to see or speak with patients, they undertake responsibility for directing, informing, and guiding patient care while establishing a professional and caring tone for the entire health care team. The value of a competent, professional, caring medical assistant is immeasurable in today's fast-paced and challenging health care environment. And therefore they have large numbers of medical assistant jobs.

The health care environment is a dynamic profession and the profession of medical assistance one that changes rapidly in response to new technology and societal needs. In an effort to reduce the cost of health care, managed care has had and will continue to have a profound impact on all health care settings. A strong health care team is critical in the health care setting, as primary care physicians, specialists of all disciplines, and allied and other health professionals collaborate on the best way to provide patient care. Increasingly selected alternative treatments may begin to complement traditional health care solutions. In almost any health care environment, but especially the ambulatory care setting, the medical assistant is a vital link in the team and is responsible for a range of responsibilities, both clinical and administrative.

Early Medical Treatments

Hello friends!
Today we will talk about early medicine and medical treatments!
The writings of ancient Egypt reveal that when a woman suspected she was pregnant, she urinated over a mixture of wheat and barley seeds combined with dates and sand. If any of the grains sprouted, she was surely pregnant. If the wheat grew, she would have a boy. If the barley grew, it would be a girl. Urine is still used in modern day tests to determine pregnancy.

Early medical treatments were often crude. For a sore throat, a physician might mix barley water, vinegar, and mulberry syrup for a gargle. Someone suffering with rheumatism might be given a prescription of chopped mice, lynx claws, and elk hooves. Rhubarb, senna, bitter apple, turpentine, camphor, and mercury were among the physicians' staples. Some physicians washed the instruments used in treating the ill; others scoffed at such a practice. Malaria, diphtheria, tuberculosis, typhoid, and dysentery were commonplace. Leprosy was prevalent and venereal diseases were rife. Smallpox was frequent in villages; sometimes the sufferer would be placed in a meat pickling vat and fumigated. The death toll from such diseases was particularly high among children. Finally in the eighteenth century, Edward Jenner made a great contribution to the prevention of disease by discovering a method of vaccination against smallpox.

Medicine progressed rapidly during the nineteenth century. Two very important discoveries occurred: anesthesia to alleviate pain during surgery and the realization that some bacteria cause disease. Once it had been proven that certain bacteria were causes of diseases and were transmissible agents responsible for contagion, greater care was taken to prevent that transmission. Asepsis became important to reduce the risk of infection. The Hungarian physician and obstetrician Ignaz Phillipp Semmeweis was able to prove that physicians who came from an autopsy directly to the care of postpartum women, without scrubbing their hands and washing instruments, carried infection with them that often caused puerperal fever (septicemia following childbirth) and death to the new mothers.

The names of Louis Pasteur , Joseph Lister , and Robert Koch are familiar to all bacteriologists. Louis Pasteur has sometimes been referred to as the Father of Preventive Medicine as the result of his work in recognizing the relationship between bacteria and infectious disease. Joseph Lister revolutionized surgery because of his belief in Pasteur's theory of using carbolic acid as an antiseptic spray. He insisted that all instruments and physicians' hands be washed with the solution, Figure 3-3. Robert Koch used the culture-plate method for isolating bacteria and demonstrated how cholera was transmitted by food and water. His discovery changed the way health departments cared for persons with infectious disease.