This is probably going to open a can of worms.............but how do you all feel about replacing nurses in the office setting with Medical Assistants? How (if at all) do you feel it affects patient care?
Do any of the MA's in your offices refer to themselves as "nurses"? Have you had any problems with the knowledge base of the MA's? How are they with patient education?
May be just my situation, but I have run across some significant problems in this area................and not sure how to address it...........or even if I can address it.
Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
I'm from Minnesota. Many (if not all) community colleges in the metro offer an AAS in medical assisting. I just looked online for a AD in medical assisting program in Texas and I found one at San Antonio College. A local real community college. Not 34,000 to attend.
That's one & not close to me. Two of the three colleges don't even offer a medical assistant program & the one that does is a certificate program. So if someone wanted to become an MA they would go through the very expensive path of a trade school, because that's the only option.
I'm not sure, I don't have an associate's degree in medical assisting. A medical assistant and a nurse are two different things. Perhaps someone wants to be a medical assistant and not a nurse, which seems obvious.
You really need to learn how to use the quote feature.
Century College, Anoka-Ramsey, Anoka Tech, Hennepin Tech. And those are just the ones I could think of and looked at the sites really quick to make sure.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
Century College, Anoka-Ramsey, Anoka Tech, Hennepin Tech. And those are just the ones I could think of and looked at the sites really quick to make sure.
They do not offer associate's degrees in medical assisting. I apologize, Hennepin and Anoka Tech does. ARCC does not. Neither does Century.
They started their program in the late 70's before there were ADN programs in nursing. I, for one, could not afford the 3 year certificate or the BSN at the time I took it at that time. I needed employment where when moving around the country for my husband's work, i would be able to obtain employment. It was much later that I went for nursing. Since I left Nebraska, this school started their ADN program. I would have taken that if it were available to me at the time.
So, there is one school who has the Associate's and one reason why someone would take it other than nursing. Also, maybe they aren't real sure if they want to be a nurse and this career helps them to decide.
OrganizedChaos, LVN
1 Article; 6,883 Posts
That's one & not close to me. Two of the three colleges don't even offer a medical assistant program & the one that does is a certificate program. So if someone wanted to become an MA they would go through the very expensive path of a trade school, because that's the only option.