Most of us have benefited from a Clinical Medical Assistant’s work when visiting a clinic, a doctor’s office, or other healthcare settings. But have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to pursue Clinical Medical Assistant training as a career?
It might help to understand what precisely a Clinical Medical Assistant does before you can appreciate the traits required to become one. While clinical duties vary according to location and, in some cases, state law, a Clinical Medical Assistant typically helps the physician record vital signs, document medical histories, prepare patients for examination, carry out procedures, perform simple lab tests, and administer medications following the physician’s instructions.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of Medical Assistants is projected to grow 18 percent from 2020 to 2030, much faster than the average for all occupations.
The growth of the aging baby-boom population will continue to increase the demand for preventive medical services, which physicians often provide. As a result, physicians, group practices, clinics, and other healthcare facilities will hire more assistants to perform routine administrative and clinical duties, allowing the physicians to see more patients.
See the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report for Medical Assistants
The Clinical Medical Assistant course provides students with the knowledge and skills needed to perform clinical procedures in various medical office settings. For example, medical assistants perform routine clinical tasks to keep the offices of physicians, podiatrists, chiropractors, optometrists, and many other specialists running smoothly. Clinical duties may also include taking medical histories and recording vital signs, drawing blood, explaining treatment procedures to patients, preparing patients for examination, assisting the physician during the examination, and assisting with minor surgery.
This program includes three components (medical assisting, phlebotomy, and electrocardiogram) and can be completed in six months by a student who allocates 10 to 15 hours per week to their studies.
Students completing this program can sit for the Certified Clinical Medical Assistant (CCMA) exam administered by the National Healthcareer Association (NHA).
In the Clinical Medical Assisting component of the training, individuals will learn how to help the physician with patient examinations, record patient histories and personal information, measure vital signs, such as blood pressure, and give patient injections of medication as directed by the physician or dictated by state law.
The Phlebotomy component prepares professionals to collect blood and other specimens from clients for laboratory analysis. During this course component, students will become familiar with all aspects related to blood collection and develop comprehensive skills to perform venipuncture methods correctly and safely.
This Electrocardiogram (EKG) component covers topics and processes critical to conducting and interpreting EKGs. To begin, you’ll review the anatomy and physiology of the heart. From there, you will explore the technology used, such as the EKG machine. Next, you’ll learn how to interpret a rhythm strip, and finally, you’ll follow this by discovering the details of myocardial infarction.
The all-inclusive program fee covers everything a student needs to successfully complete the Clinical Medical Assisting program, including:
This program qualifies for the MyCAA Tuition Assistance Program sponsored by the Department of Defense—a program designed for military spouses.
Upon completing the online training program, a student is eligible* for our optional Clinical Medical Assisting Externship. The Clinical Medical Assisting Externship is a standard 160-hour unpaid rotation. During this Externship, students have a chance to get hands-on experience and practice conducting a variety of procedures on patients with supervision. The Externship is designed to ensure students get a minimum of 50 sticks (a combination of venipuncture/capillary sticks and ten skin punctures) and record this on a log sheet that a lab supervisor signs.
As a participant in this Clinical Externship, you must agree to provide a resume to their assigned Externship Coordinator no less than three weeks following initial contact. Failure to provide such a resume will result in students not participating in the externship opportunity. In addition, the following terms and conditions apply to the Externship:
By participating in this process, students are entering into an unpaid volunteer clinical externship opportunity which, at no time, constitutes an employee-employer relationship. The facility is under no obligation to continue your clinical experience, nor should you maintain these expectations.
*Students who wish to participate in this course’s optional clinical externship portion must complete their program with a grade of 70% or higher on the final exam and course average, spending at least 50 hours in the course. All externship placements are subject to the availability, scheduling, and staffing needs of the externship sites.
We will coordinate an externship for each eligible student at a healthcare organization in their local area. In over eight years of providing this service, we have not had an instance where we could not do this—pandemic or no pandemic. With this said, we cannot guarantee a placement due to circumstances outside our control which include a lack of healthcare organizations located in a rural area, acts of God, situations where healthcare organizations have curtailed their operations due to a pandemic or other cause or in situations where a student chooses not to meet the outlined requirements.
