Common Questions about Medical Assistants:
What Medical Assistants Do?
Medical assistants complete administrative and
clinical tasks in the offices of physicians, podiatrists, chiropractors,
and other health practitioners. Their duties vary with the location,
specialty, and size of the practice.
Work Environment?
Most medical assistants work in physicians' offices and other healthcare facilities. Most work full time.
How to Become a Medical Assistant?
In most states, there are no formal educational
requirements for becoming a medical assistant. Most have at least a high
school diploma. Many assistants learn through on-the-job training. Many Medical Assistant also take classes online or at local community/junior college. St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants is now offering a comprehensive program online for Medical Assistants to study and review the basics of working in a medical office as a Medical Assistant.
What is the Average Pay?
The median annual wage of medical assistants was $28,860 in May 2010.
What is the Job Outlook for Medical Assistants?
Employment is expected to grow by 31 percent from 2010 to 2020, much faster than the average for all occupations. Demand will stem from physicians hiring more medical assistants to do routine administrative and clinical duties so that physicians can see more patients.
How Can I Learn More About Online Courses?
You can view program details for the St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants online course at:
http://www.medassistant.org/program_details.html
What is a MOOC?
A massive open online course (MOOC) is a type of online course aimed at large-scale participation and open access via the web. MOOCs are a recent development in the area of distance education, and a progression of the kind of open education ideals suggested by open educational resources.
Though the design of and participation in a MOOC may be similar to
college or university courses, MOOCs typically do not offer credits
awarded to paying students at schools. However, assessment of learning
may be done for certification. MOOCs originated from within the open educational resources movement and connectivist roots. More recently, a number of MOOC-type projects have emerged independently, such as Coursera, Udacity, edX.
The prominence of these projects' founders, contributing institutions,
and financial investment helped MOOCs gain significant public attention
in 2012. Some of the attention behind these new MOOCs center on making e-learning more scalable either sustainable or profitable.
