Advice

I have recently interviewed for several medical assistant positions. Although I haven't been accepted yet, I would like to ask you some questions about your experience as a medical assistant. I have a B.S. in Biology but no experience whatsoever. I know you were in a similar situation. How difficult was it for you to do certain procedures or duties? Can you please give me some advice or any tips on how to be successful and learn as much as possible?

You graduated from college. You are then totally capable of handling any medical assistant duty they throw at you. The hardest thing for me to learn was how to load a patient and get the starts of a history. It also took me a while to be comfortable taking the notes of what the assessment and plan was for each patient. But this is the stuff you learn in PA/Med school! It's not suppose to be easy. So if you go in accepting that you're probably going to suck at the beginning, then you'll be okay.

There were other things that were easy, but uncomfortable like giving an injection, doing a little cauterization during a surgery, laser treatments. But again, you have to accept that it might suck the first time you do it, but you're not going to kill the person.

Make sure you take the job that will give you the most patient contact possible. I feel like my job gave me an inordinate amount of responsibilities. I was quite literally doing the same job as the ACTUAL nurses.

In short: Accept that there is a learning curve and that you will suck at your job at first. If providers go nuts on you, don't take it to heart. They get what they pay for - an untrained new college grad.