A medical assistant’s role varies based on where they’re employed. Some duties are consistent across all healthcare settings, but the procedures you’ll do may differ. Working with a cardiologist, for example, you’ll perform electrocardiograms and pacemaker checks. In a surgical practice, you’ll remove stitches. In a pediatric environment, procedures have more significance. Children must be handled with care.
What Does a Medical Assistant Do?
Medical assistants are allied health professionals. They support licensed staff by managing a broad array of clinical and administrative tasks in doctor’s offices, hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities. The job includes:
Taking Phone Calls
Medical assistants take clinical phone calls on providers’ behalf, answering general questions and working with patients to address their health concerns. The goal is to save the doctor time while ensuring that patients feel valued and cared for.
Scheduling
In most doctors’ offices, physicians each have a medical assistant to guide their schedule. While the front office makes routine appointments, medical assistants work closely with providers to arrange urgent visits or alternative emergency care.
Rooming Patients
Medical assistants welcome patients, making them comfortable as they wait for their examinations. They use lag time wisely by updating medical records and performing routine clinical tasks to save the clinician time. Preparing patients for visits gives busy doctors more time to delve into serious issues.
Infection Control
Medical settings can harbor dangerous pathogens. Medical assistants keep patients healthy by sanitizing treatment areas, disinfecting tools and equipment and sterilizing surgical instruments.
Managing Inventory
Medical assistants keep schedules running smoothly by stocking exam rooms with the supplies providers need to perform treatments. Working with administrators, you’ll help track inventory and order medical supplies.
Billing and Coding
Most of a medical assistant’s billing tasks are part of their clinical duties. Using the superbill created at check-in, they check off the services and supplies used during a treatment, procedure, or exam. Accurate coding is essential for billing, if the codes are wrong, claims are rejected.
Patient Education
As the doctor’s representative, medical assistants help patients better understand their treatment plans. They discuss concerns, relay messages and direct patients to the proper medical resources. Patients undergoing procedures will typically get pre- and post-care instructions from a medical assistant.
Performing Procedures
Medical assistants perform or assist with dozens of clinical procedures. Although similar in most settings, they require a different approach in a pediatric environment. Next, we’ll examine the most common.
What Procedures are Performed by Medical Assistants During Pediatric Office Visits?
During a pediatric visit, medical assistants:
Assist with Examinations
Examining young children is challenging because they can’t reliably follow instructions. And when they’re uncomfortable, they’re fidgety and irritable, making thorough assessment difficult.
Medical assistants help the pediatrician guide and position patients for their comfort and safety. With empathy and a gentle hand, you can avoid the use of restraints.
Take Vital Signs
Pediatric patients can’t report symptoms accurately, so vital signs become increasingly important. Medical assistants measure temperature, heart rate, blood pressure and respirations at each visit using pediatric equipment and guidelines.
Record Vital Statistics
Closely monitoring growth and developmental milestones is how pediatricians detect abnormalities early. A child who weighs in the lowest percentile for their age, for example, may be suffering from diagnosed malnutrition.
Medical assistants record a child’s height and weight at every visit, creating a running record that makes it easy to track as they get older.
Give Childhood Immunizations
Children from infants to adolescents get a slate of vaccinations. As a medical assistant, you’ll help inform parents of which are due when as well as administer the shots and review aftercare.
You’ll learn about the recommended immunization schedule in school plus how to give injections to patients of all ages. Parents will depend on you for accurate information and guidance.
Collect Blood Samples
Medical assistants are trained in phlebotomy, drawing blood from a vein with a needle. But the process is somewhat different for pediatric patients. Older children can have samples drawn from their arms, but you’ll rely on finger or heel sticks for newborns, infants, and toddlers. And instead of the standard blood collection tubes, you’ll fill smaller capillary tubes that allow testing to be done on smaller samples.
Not surprisingly, drawing blood from children is exacting, it’s a scary procedure. You’ll need exceptional technical skills and a good rapport with children and their families.
The ability to draw blood confidently is critical for pediatric medical assistants. Because children can’t accurately self-report symptoms, there are many routine tests done on young children from PKU screening to lead testing.
Do Diagnostic Testing
Medical assistants perform the same diagnostic tests on children as they do on adults, but the techniques are somewhat different. Obtaining a urine sample, for example, is easy with a cooperative adult. For a newborn, you may have to squeeze it from a diaper or help a nurse catheterize the child.
Human anatomy changes as the body grows, so the supplies used to do some tests, like electrocardiograms, come in different shapes and sizes. A pediatric medical assistant must be familiar with a wide range of equipment to make the right choices.
Assist with Surgical Procedures
Minor surgical procedures once done only in hospitals are now performed in pediatrician’s offices with the help of a medical assistant. Circumcisions are a good example. You’ll help by preparing the right tools and equipment, passing instruments during the procedure, and assisting with aftercare and cleanup.
Perform Wound Care
Medical assistants can perform superficial wound care under supervision. You’ll help kids avoid dangerous infections by cleaning and bandaging abrasions and lacerations. Post-surgery, you’ll also remove sutures and staples.
Pierce Ears
Not all parents are comfortable having their child’s ears pierced at the mall. Some prefer the safety of a pediatrician’s office. Done by a nurse or a medical assistant, ear piercing is a relatively safe and pain-free procedure.
You won’t learn this skill in a medical assisting program. But your knowledge of infection control will complement on-the-job training.
Where Do Medical Assistants Work with Pediatric Patients?
Medical assistants work with pediatric patients wherever they receive care, such as:
Pediatrician’s Offices
Most medical assistants work for physicians, so interactions with pediatric patients usually occurs in private practices. On an average day, you’ll see both well and sick children. Being employed in a pediatrician’s office is a fun way to use a variety of skills, but taking vital signs, recording vital statistics, and giving immunizations will be among your most common duties.
Unlike working in a clinic or hospital, you’ll serve the same patients consistently, sharing in their lives as they grow into young adults. For people-persons, there’s no better way to form lasting relationships with children and their families.
Specialty Clinics
Children with serious medical issues see specialists for some of their care. Working in a specialty clinic, medical assistants can pursue the type of practice they enjoy most. If you’re fascinated by electrocardiography, a job in pediatric cardiology will be particularly satisfying. If you’re a talented phlebotomist, a children’s oncology clinic could use your help.
You may not, however, see the same patient base for extended periods. As children get well, their care is provided by their primary care doctor. And sadly, it’s many of the sickest kids who see specialists.
Urgent Care Clinics
Urgent care clinics have a variable demographic, but when it comes to utilizing your skills, you’ll use them all. Urgent care facilities see kids with a wide range of illnesses and injuries.
Tasks, however, may be less complex as the point of urgent care is to deal only with the problem at hand and then transfer care to the patient’s primary physician. In this setting, you won’t always know how things turn out.
Hospitals
Medical assistants in hospitals have mostly administrative roles. Because patient acuity is higher, nurses handle the clinical tasks. But medical assistants still work with children in outpatient units, contributing in equally valuable ways. Without clerical and logistical support, hospital care would come to a standstill. If you prefer a hands-on clinical role, working in a doctor’s office may be a more rewarding choice.
Public Health Departments
Public health departments hire nurses and medical assistants to staff immunization clinics, tuberculosis testing programs and lead screening projects. Nurses can work on the road independently, so they manage most outreach efforts. However, medical assistants can draw blood, do testing and give injections in supervised settings. Graduates with an interest in community healthcare should explore public health positions.
How Do You Become a Medical Assistant?
Most roles in healthcare require years of training and a college degree. However, you don’t need to live in a classroom to become a medical assistant. Full-time students can complete a vocational school program in months, graduating work-ready with a diploma.
Programs are comprehensive but brief, eliminating the general electives that don’t directly contribute to occupational skills. The focus is on the practical, hands-on training you need to succeed without experience. You’ll qualify for similar positions as 4-year college graduates, and the curriculum prepares you for the same certification so you can grow your career.
Final Thoughts
Few things are as meaningful as making a difference in a child’s life. And few careers offer as much opportunity to do that as pediatric medical assisting.
Want to Learn More?
Meridian College offers hands–on Medical Assistant training from experienced school faculty who know how to prepare you for the daily challenges you’ll face on the job. From assisting doctors with patients to important administrative tasks, our experienced Medical Assistant program teachers will train you for a rewarding new career.
In addition to receiving training from school instructors with real-world experience, you will also complete a school externship in a physician’s office, clinic, or related healthcare facility under the supervision of a physician, nurse, or health services professional to further develop your skills.
Contact Meridian College today to learn more about becoming a medical assistant.