I ran into an old friend from elementary school and she brought up that she was graduating soon from a 12 month long MA program. I am not sure, but I guess she had begun her 4 month long clinical phase(?). I congratulated her on her success (she graduated with honors) and I mentioned that we had something in common, that I also was entering the medical field. I told her that I had just been accepted into a RN program a few days prior (I was still in shock ). As soon as I said that, she got really defensive. She began stating that MAs do 90% of what RNs do, if not more. MAs get paid almost the same as RNs because the knowledge is the basically the same:uhoh3:.
She basically said that RNs and MAs are the same except that MAs don't do IVs.
Then she proceeded to tell me how she hated the RNs in her clinicals.
After a while she calmed down and said that she wanted to be a RN but went the MA route because she was getting a break with the tuition. She also plans on eventually going into a RN program once she is more financially able. My question is how similar are MAs and RNs? I worked at an internal med office for a year and I remember pretty well what our MA did most of the time (she trained me).Then again I am sure there are more skills under her belt that she just never had the chance to use within that year. Once she began talking then my defences went up as well (I felt like she was putting me down), although I kept quiet because who am I to say anything, I am not a nurse yet , right?
Since I did not attent school with her, how do I know what her curriculum consisted of? So now I am turning to you ladies and gents to educate me on how similar or different MAs and RNs are.
