Top Soft Skills for a Medical Assistant Diploma

Do you love taking care of your friends or family when they’re sick? Have doctor’s offices always inspired you to make a difference in the world? If you’re nodding your head yes, then obtaining a Medical Assistant diploma from Arizona College could be your stepping-stone to a fulfilling career in patient care.

Keep reading to see Arizona College’s top skills for people looking to get a Medical Assistant diploma!

Verbal Communicator

Medical assistants are essential in the doctor-to-patient relationship. They greet patients as they arrive, register them, answer calls, communicate with hospitals, handle physician referrals, and so much more. Because of the variety of contact points, it’s important for medical assistants to possess clear and friendly communication. The messages and information they pass back and forth are vital, not only to a patient’s health, but a physician’s practice.

Attention to Detail

A large chunk of a medical assistant’s day-to-day consists of honing in on the little details. From verifying patient insurance coverage to filing patient medial records, there’s no shortage of information to analyze and process. Medical assistants can take on bookkeeping, payroll and tax processing as well, making their eyes crucial to the fluid operation of a physician’s practice.

Empathetic

There will be times when you’ll encounter distressed, frustrated and mournful patients or families. It’s important to express sincere empathy at these times, because for some of these patients, you may be all they have in the moment. . In the medical field, it is important that you have  a real attachment to the people you’re serving on a daily basis. Expressing empathy to struggling patients can make all the difference.

Composed

Though administrative tasks can take up large chunks of the day depending on the volume your healthcare workplace sees, clinical tasks come as plentiful as its paperwork aftermath too. Medical assistants may be responsible for drawing blood, taking urine dips and changing the dressings on wounds. On a daily basis, Medical Assistants work with physicians and other support staff with the goal of improving overall health and well-being of their patients.

Versatile Multi-Tasker

Depending on the size and focus of the practice, medical assistants can be found charting a patient’s medical history, taking vital signs, assisting a physician during an examination, collecting specimens for lab analysis, taking mouth swabs, authorizing prescription refills per the physician’s recommendation, communicating between lab results or treatment plans to patients, and plenty of other clinical or administrative tasks. The sheer volume of a medical assistant’s workload requires a calm, composed demeanor. If you’re the type to that likes to stay busy and change gears constantly, then obtaining a medical assistant diploma may be for you!

Does a career in the Medical Assistant field sound interesting? We want to hear from you! Kindly fill out the Request Information form to the right to start your Arizona College journey toward a medical assistant diploma.

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Information in this blog post is accurate as of November 4, 2015.

Information in this post is accurate as of November 4, 2015.

*The Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree program at Arizona College of Nursing is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (https://www.aacnnursing.org/). All Arizona College of Nursing and Arizona College campuses are institutionally accredited by the Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools (https://www.abhes.org/), a U.S. Department of Education-recognized accrediting agency.