What Can a Medical Assistant Do?
Medical assistants work in clinical settings or physician offices help medical facilities and physician offices complete their administrative and clinical tasks. They may perform a range of duties, according to One*Net OnLine1, including:
- Taking and recording vital signs and medical histories
- Cleaning and sterilizing instruments and disposing of contaminated supplies
- Preparing patients for examination and drawing blood
- Preparing treatment rooms for patient examinations
- Scheduling appointments, answering phones, billing, and coding information for insurance purposes
What a Medical Assistant Can’t Do
Medical assistants cannot perform invasive procedures on patients. Some disallowed procedures, according to the Medical Board of California2, include:
- Administer chemotherapy
- Use lasers to remove unwanted features on a patient, such as hair or scars
- Inject collagen
- Insert urinary catheters
- Start, disconnect IV infusion tubes or administer medications in IV lines
It is illegal to use medical assistants as a substitute for highly trained and licensed medical professionals. Rather, an MA’s presence in a medical setting is to perform basic supportive services and to assist. Specific duties are aligned with the assistant’s required training.
Medical Assistant Skills
Good medical assistants who value their work and who are valued by employers often have a combination of skills that positively contribute to the work experience.
As a medical assistant, you should enjoy opportunities to work with people and help patients who may be from different cultures than your own, according to the State of California Employment Development Department.3
Having the ability to put people at ease is also a good trait to have in this role. That’s a skill that is helpful with patients who are reluctant to freely share their symptoms and other health-related information with medical staff. Some patients may also have limited English-speaking skills.
Some states and some work environments allow medical assistants to perform different tasks. In several states, clinical medical assistants can perform laboratory tests, draw blood, remove stitches or sterilize medical equipment. Each niche may also have specific tasks. A podiatric medical assistant, for instance, may make castings of feet or help in surgery.
Depending on your training, whether you have medical assisting certification, and the state you practice in, you may need specific skills for performing some of these tasks, according to the State of California Employment Development Department3, including:
| Tasks | Needed Skills |
| Obtaining medical information from patients | Active Listening |
| Greeting patients, taking them to exam rooms, and preparing patients for the physician | Customer and personal service |
| Recording patients’ medical history, vitals, and test results in records | Clear, accurate writing |
| Collecting and logging patient lab specimens and preparing specimens for testing | Problem sensitivity — ability to identify potential difficulties and missing information and know how to correct them |
| Explaining treatments procedures, medications, diets and physician’s patient instructions | Good verbal communication skills |
| Assisting physicians in examining and treating patients, handing them instruments and giving injections or removing sutures | Service oriented — eager to help and maintain a positive attitude |
| Authorizing drug refills and provide prescription information to pharmacies | Clerical proficiency |
| Preparing patient treatment rooms and maintaining room cleanliness | Information ordering — ability to arrange perform actions in a specific order or pattern, following certain rules |
Technical Skills
Some technical skills you may need as a medical assistant, according to O*Net OnLine1, include the ability to use:
- Basic clinical instruments
- Scheduling, billing, and email software
- Medical applications and tools
- Microsoft Office Suite
- Proficient understanding of operating systems
To learn more about how you can gain the skills to be a successful medical assistant we recommend enrolling in medical assistant schooling and taking a course or learning through hands-on education.
