any medical assistants here?

**carolyns** · 10-02-2006, 09:28 PM

i am considering returning to school to become a medical assistant. my local college has a 9 month accredited program after which i can become certified as an MA. does anybody do this? know anybody who does this? is it worth it? are there jobs out there? i have my bachelors degree in useless, er i mean psychology (ha-ha), and that is basically a worthless piece of paper. naturally, i am a little leary of all schooling now. any feedback is appreciated!

**Goodwin17** · 10-03-2006, 12:16 AM

There is a medical assistant where I work. I think it depends on the school, but ours checks in our patients (gets history, current problem, vital signs), does blood draws and other labs (this can carry over to a lab position at a hospital), does EKGs, and assists with obtaining blood pressure readings and inputting them into the machine during our stress tests. I think MA's are great.

**littlemotherhaywood** · 10-03-2006, 09:10 AM

Where I came from they didn't make much money at all and where I'm at now, I don't see a lot of ads for them. I'm not really sure where you'd make the most money in that profession if money was the goal. I know quite a few people with psychology degrees and none of them are working in that field

One of them is a state trooper now after doing sales and account management for years. I know I'm considering going back to school myself. I would love to do the whole chebang and get the degree of my dreams, but it's not in the finances and I really don't have the time nor do I want to leave my kids to pursue such a massive undertaking. I'm consider a surgical tech program they have here. It is full-time I believe but only sixteen months long and one of the mothers in my girl scouts group just finished it and she makes $20 an hour and works in obstetrics. I would love to do that. She's currently working nights though which I'm not all that interested in. But...by the time I'd be finished both of my kids would be in school/preschool at least half a day so I could still get some sleep. Sorry to ramble. Just glad to hear I'm not the only one considering going back to school. Good luck whatever you decide.

**ama** · 10-03-2006, 08:27 PM

I work at a large hospital in Metro Detroit and I do know they hire a few MA's plus there are always job postings in the HR dept for local drs. Much like anything out there that is learned at a trade school I'm afraid the market is flooded but I'm sure you'll be able to find work as an MA. Just not sure how much it pays.

**Michelle68** · 10-03-2006, 10:42 PM

Why not go for LVN (or LPN, depending on where you live), instead? This is a program for 12 months. It's pretty intensive, but as an L.V.N. you'll be paid a lot more than a medical assistant and have more job opportunities. Plus, if you decide to continue for RN later, there are programs which give credit for your LVN experience and are much faster than if you started from scratch. (I'm an LVN, BTW.)
Good luck on whatever you decide.

--Michelle

**baxjul** · 10-04-2006, 05:39 PM

There are MA's where I work, they do the vitals, bring patients back, draw blood, and EKG's. I think that they get paid around $9.50/hr.

I never heard of them until I moved to FL, in PA they weren't around.