Find Opportunity and Challenge in a Medical Assistant Career Are you looking for a meaningful and challenging career? From measuring vital signs and performing lab tests, to greeting patients and scheduling appointments, medical assistants are crucial members of a health care team. Due to advances in medical technology and a growing population of elderly people in need of medical care, medical assistant careers are growing like never before. You'll find medical assistants in physician offices, nursing homes, clinics, hospitals and emergency rooms. 
Making Things Go Smoothly With a knowledge base that includes anatomy, physiology, medical terminology, pharmacology, and medical billing and coding, medical assistants are highly versatile professionals in both clinical and administrative realms. Medical assistants communicate with a wide variety people including doctors, nurses, patients, medical billing staff, insurance representatives and pharmacists. A typical day in a medical assistant career is never lacking in excitement. As a medical assistant, your primary responsibility is to ensure that everything is working smoothly. You're an important extra set of hands for nurses and health administrators. You may stock supplies, answer phones, set up an EKG, draw blood or explain treatment procedures to patients. In a fast-paced medical assistant career, you'll need to solve problems and be everywhere at once, while remaining calm and professional. Providing a Personal Touch Jennifer Krintz, a veteran medical assistant, highlights the importance of empathy in her work: "When a patient comes in, I'll record their medical history, discuss current symptoms and take their vital signs. I help make the patient feel as comfortable as possible and prepare them to meet with the doctor. Everyone, especially patients, can get stressed out in this environment; you can't take things personally. It's essential to understand where they're coming from." While a medical assistant career can be demanding, both emotionally and physically, the personal rewards of working in the medical field are great. As the fastest growing profession in the country, a medical assistant career will provide you with plentiful job opportunities and the chance to make a difference. Medical Assistant Career Specialties Podiatric Medical Assistants Podiatric medical assistants make castings of feet, expose and develop x-rays, and assist podiatrists in surgery. Ophthalmic Medical Assistants Ophthalmic medical assistants help ophthalmologists in providing medical eye care, conducting diagnostic tests, measuring and recording vision, and testing eye muscle function. They show patients how to insert, remove and care for contact lenses. They also apply eye dressings, administer eye medications under care of the physician, and maintain optical and surgical instruments. They may also assist the ophthalmologist in surgery.
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