Medical Assistant Career

Medical assistant career usually consist of performing scheduled accounting and clinical tasks to sustain effectiveness in medical offices and as we can see that medical assistants demand is increasing day by day! One must keep in mind that they are not like physician assistants because a physician assistant’s job involves examination and treatment of patients by the instructions given by a physician. The factors that concern the job of medical assistants are position and amount of the practice and also the physician's area of expertise.


Note that when medical practices are not too large, MAs are called personals with medical and administrative duties. They have to report directly to the physician or office manager at the health care center. Whereas MAs, who are in large practice area generally focus on a definite area and are directly supervised by the division supervisor. Some jobs in medical assistant career consist of; welcoming the patients, keep up the medical records of health centre, filling different forms, organizing appointments between physician and patient and carry out major laboratory services.


The laws in United States of America cause the medical assistants to carry out different medical duties. The medical assistant career includes getting back of patient’s medical history, watching for vital signs and informing them on the subject of healing, assisting the physician in examination of patients and carrying out general laboratory tests and taking care of medical equipments. The common task of all MAs is that they educate a patient about his medical treatments like medicinal prescriptions and eating routine, preparing and giving medicines, propose medicine list to the pharmacy, take the patient for x-ray testing and for changing the dress.

Expert medical assistant career includes more responsibilities. For instance, podiatric medical assistants' job include: surgical procedure assistance, x ray procedure and development of machinery. Ophthalmic MAs help ophthalmologists in providing care procedure for eyes. Their duties include eye testing to analyze, calculate and manuscript different functions of eyes. They help out patients with their contact lenses to ensure appropriate placing, exclusion of lenses. And by the help of doctors, the expert medical assistants moreover give medication for their eyes. Additional duty of MAs are helping the surgeon in surgical measures, guarantee preservation of optical supplies and to manage the dressing of eyes.

Also note that medical assistants execute accommodating errands in group medic practice, in clinic or hospitals, in medical insurance company and equipment firms. The MAs can also be portrayed as word technicians who transcribe and check over medical letter and reports connected with patient's inspection and lab dealings. All in all we can say that to have a good Medical assistant career you must have power over high extent of speaking, listening and editing abilities.

Writing Tips For Medical Assistants

Rosemary Fruehling, a writer and lecturer, states "Business writing is good when it achieves the purpose the author intended. The first paragraph of a letter should hold the reader's attention and elicit a response if required." If the reader has to wander through several paragraphs to discover what the writer wants, the letter is of little value to the sender.Medical assistants will vary in their writing abilities. However, a clear purpose, continued practice, and an understanding of writing fundamentals will enable all medical assistants to write clearly and accurately.            
1. Identify Topics
Before beginning, organize your thoughts by:    
a) writing down key points on index cards
b) organizing cards in a logical sequence.    

2. Use Clear and Concise Language    
a) Respect the reader and use language the audience will understand.
b) Be courteous.
c) State the reason for the letter in the first paragraph.    
d) Use positive words and phrases; avoid negative words when possible.    
e) Choose unambiguous words and phrases; do not confuse the reader.    

3. Establish Tone of Voice
Be personable and cordial in tone; some letters may be formal, others informal. However, professional correspondence should never be overly familiar.

4. Follow Office Style
a) Review previous correspondence or an in-office style manual to identify correct format and style.    
b) Use the same format for all office correspondence.    

5. Encourage Response    
Write the closing paragraph to encourage action.    

6) Spelling
Be certain all the written communications have no misspelled or incorrectly used words. Make a list of words that you often misspell and alphabetize them in a notebook. Several computer word processing software packages contain English/Medical spell check features. A new word that is not currently identified in the Spell Check or Medical Check package may be added to the program. When you check a spelling in the dictionary, develop the habit of reading the definition as well. This will help you imprint the correct spelling and meaning of the word.

7) Confusing and Misused Words
Be certain that the word is used correctly. For example, "there" or "their" are both spelled correctly; however, be certain to use the word with the correct meaning. If in doubt, check a dictionary to differentiate between similar sounding words. Do not use the word unless certain of correct usage.

8) Proofreading
Prior to mailing any correspondence, check the letter for errors such as misspelled words, missing words, and inverted characters. Some tips to remember are:    
1. Do not proofread when tired.
2. Prepare the document, set it aside, proofread it later.
3. Read in several short time frames if the document is long.    
4. Avoid proofreading on the computer screen. Print a hard copy to proof.
5. Read sentence backwards to check for spelling. (Caution, the word may be correct; however, the usage may be incorrect.)
6. If proofing a long document, read it to another person and have this person check sentence structure.
7. Use a card or ruler to hold under the line you are reading to maintain your place in the document.    
Proofreading marks most commonly used are shown in Figure 16-1. There are many additional proofing marks.