Medical Assistant

Instructor:  Deborah Womack, AAS, RMA, LPN

Medical assistants are multi-skilled health professionals specifically educated to work in ambulatory settings performing administrative and clinical duties. The practice of medical assisting directly influences the public's health and well-being, and requires mastery of a complex body of knowledge and specialized skills requiring both formal education and practical experience that serve as standards for entry into the profession.

The Medical Assistant program prepares students to become competent entry-level medical assistants in the cognitive (knowledge), psychomotor (skills), and affective (behavior) learning domains . Physicians' offices, clinics, and group practices are areas of ambulatory care in which Medical Assistants are employed as multi-skilled professionals. Each student in the Medical Assistant program attends 12 months of training including an externship rotation of on-the-job training in a doctor's office or other clinical facility.

Medical Assistants perform clinical and administrative functions to keep the health care ambulatory setting running smoothly. Administrative duties include answering telephones, greeting patients, updating and filing medical records, completing insurance forms, handling correspondence, scheduling appointments, arranging for hospital admission and laboratory services, billing, and bookkeeping. Clinical duties vary but are not limited to taking and recording vital signs and medical histories, preparing patients for and explaining treatment procedures and examinations, performing basic laboratory tests, administrations of medications, and instructing patients about medications.

Medical Assistants are valuable assets to the health care delivery setting. Subjects in the program provide training for the student to enter the workforce as an entry level multi-skilled health professional.

Typical Subjects Taken

  •  Anatomy and Physiology
  •  English
  •  Business Math
  •  Psychology
  •  Professional Adjustments
  •  Medical Terminology
  •  Pharmacology
  •  Keyboarding
  •  Admimistrative Keyboarding
  •  Accounting
  •  Insurance
  •  Billing and Collecting
  •  Human Diseases
  •  Maternal Child Care
  •  Externship

Once the student successfully completes the 12-month training program, the student is enabled to sit for the national certification exam. If the student successfully passes that exam, the title Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) is awarded. Only students who graduate from an accredited Medical Assistant program are allowed to sit for this exam.

The Tennessee Technology Center at McMinnville Medical Assisting Program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Educational Programs (www.caahep.org) upon the recommendation by the Medical Assisting Education Review Board (MAERB), a Committee on Accreditation (CA) of CAAHEP. The MAERB is independent of the AAMA in all matters of accreditation. CAAHEP is the accrediting agency.

Commission on Accreditation-Allied Health Educational Programs (CAAHEP)

1361 Park Street
Clearwater, FL 33756
(727) 210-2350

American Association of Medical Assistants Endowment

20 North Wacker Drive, Suite 1575
Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 899-1500

Award

     Medical Assistant - 1296 hours / Diploma
     Highest Award: Diploma
     Program Length: 12 months