(Almost) Everything You Need to Know About Becoming a Medical Assistant

1. Penn Foster's online Medical Assistant Career Diploma program offers a comprehensive and flexible path to becoming a certified medical assistant (CMA).
2. The curriculum balances administrative and clinical skills through a mix of theory, hands-on practice, and simulations.
3. Extensive student support helps build confidence and overcome challenges.
4. The program includes test preparation for certification exams, which covers the cost of NHA study materials and practice exams.
5. Becoming a medical assistant provides a rewarding, versatile, and in-demand career path in the healthcare field.

Listen to my interview with Pam and Theresa on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Let's start with the basics and answer some questions we get from prospective students. Here’s Theresa to tell us about Penn Foster’s Medical Assistant Career Diploma program:

“When you enroll, you get most of the basics behind you. So, introduction to allied health, body systems and medical terminology, law, and ethics. You get all of that material, electronic medical records, and then it all leads up to the clinical labs, which has a mixture of theory. Students will be reading about the procedures that they'll most likely be performing as a medical assistant. We have simulations called SimTechs.

They can go in and put the EKG leads on a patient or take a person's vital signs or give injections in the simulation. They get that layer of practice and then that all comes together when they do the actual skill demonstrations where we give them all the tools that they need like a blood pressure cuff and EKG leads. Then, they record themselves and they submit it. Pam, one of our instructors, reviews those to make sure that they're performing the skills properly.”

Read more: Your Guide to Medical Assistant Duties

Pam: “With some of those skills such as the vital signs and the EKG leads, they have to practice on a real person. They often have to get a volunteer to do some of those skills with, and I feel this also gets them ready for the field because when you're in the field, you have to learn how to address the patient. So, while they're in that clinical course, not only do we grade them on the skills, we grade them on how they communicate.

So, when they go into the skill, they should be introducing themselves to the patient. They should be asking the patient for two identifiers, like the full name and date of birth. They also should be explaining the skill and asking permission. They don't do any invasive skills on the patient.”

Pam shares one example of how medical assistant students get experience without using a live volunteer: “When they practice phlebotomy, they do have this mini arm that they use for any skills that require a puncture . So, I feel that students get quite a bit of hands-on with the courses along with the simulations.”

If you’re struggling with an assignment or a skill, there’s help.

Pam: “We also provide live sessions. So, let's say, they get the step-by-step instructions with the skill sheet and they're not really understanding how to complete it with the skill sheet. They can schedule an appointment with one of our instructors and we can walk them through the skill, or we can do the skill together. We also offer our office hours too, which are every Wednesday from 12-1 PM and 7-8 PM ET…This also gives them another opportunity to ask about the skills. Like I had one today and we actually practiced changing sterile dressing.”

How else does Penn Foster support its medical assistant students in sitting for certification exams like the CCMA (Certified Clinical Medical Assistant)?

Theresa: “The good thing about our courses is when we develop them, we look directly at the certification exams and align all of our content to what the certification expectations are. We're very mindful of that. And students are able to go back in and review that when they're finished with the program…The book that we use for our clinical courses is very thorough as well, so that's another good thing that they can reference. But the best thing that we do provide is once they're graduated, we do offer the NHA study pack. We enroll them in the study guides, which are very thorough, and they get six practice exams. They have the opportunity to prepare themselves specifically for that exam.”

This type of test prep does not come cheap but is part of the curriculum at Penn Foster. You can finish your classes and then prep for the CCMA exam without worrying about buying study guides or practice tests.

Theresa: “They usually get an email once they're ready to get that on how to enroll in NHA to get the study prep materials, but that's not an additional cost on them. If it's like a regular Joe on the street, yeah, that would be a cost for them, but not for the Pen Foster student.”

Removing that financial barrier helps clear the pathway for more people to graduate and successfully pass their certification exams.

Read more: Do Medical Assistants Need to Be Certified?

What makes the medical assistant program work so well is the interactions between students and faculty. Pam tells us about a former student: “This was her first time ever doing anything in the medical field. And when she first enrolled in the course and she got to the clinical portion, she was nervous, she was scared. And she sent me an email stating that she didn't think she could do this.

And I sent her another email saying that she can, and that I would work with her. She would schedule weekly live calls with me, and we would go through each skill. And one thing I noticed was that after she got more comfortable in doing the skill, her confidence level rose. When it got time for her to go to the externship, she emailed me and told me that she was nervous about the externship because she didn't want to leave me. I was telling her about our externship coordinators. Both of them are excellent at working with our students and she was in good hands.

And you know, she just thanked me because she said that everybody always told her that she couldn’t, you know, you're not going to do this, you're not going to do this, you're not going to do that. But in the end, she found out that she could. It made me smile inside to see her grow and flourish throughout the course. So, by the end, when she was doing the last few skills, she was confident, and I felt like she had it. So, we did a combination of things like one-on-one instruction and watching videos about procedures. She called me back after the externship and she said it went well.”

In addition to using your instructors as a resource, there’s also an active Penn Foster medical assistant Facebook group. Some students break off and have offsite study sessions or will reach out to the group if they are stuck on a skill and have questions.

But they also share their successes! Theresa shares that the forum is monitored, but that for the most part it’s “a community of love, and it's a real good support system for students who might not have somebody to cheer them on.” Alumni get involved, too! Former students have been joining the chat to answer questions, help current students find resources like instructional videos, and offer guidance on getting through the program and taking the CCMA.

Pam also says faculty offer practice sessions to help students get comfortable with hands-on skills. She explains: “We have our office-hour sessions each Wednesday. I usually try to do little mini lessons on skills each week. A few weeks ago, I did have a few sessions where students brought their own supplies to the office-hour session, and we did the skills together. Like they had their supplies. I had my supplies. I took them step by step. They stopped, asked me questions. Sometimes they asked me, hey, go back and do that again. So, I would go back and repeat the steps until they actually got it.

One session, I took them through an office visit from start to finish and when we finished the visit, we had prepared an office note. One of the students was in a billing course, so she hadn't gotten to the clinical course yet. And she said, ‘I got it.’ And I'm thinking, I was wondering if she got how to access a patient, but she was saying ‘I got it’ because after me going through a patient visit, she understood how to link the medical codes and the procedures to that visit. That was something I really wasn't expecting. But then again, it was good because she was able to see that just from an office hour setting. So that's another resource that we give to them.”

We’ve touched on hands-on skill training and study groups, but what about the classwork? A medical assistant student should expect a lot of multiple-choice assignments, readings, and flash cards, especially at the beginning of the program while you’re learning the basics.

But don’t worry! It isn’t all rote memorization and dry reading assignments. Theresa tells us about the electronic medical records course: “It’s very immersive. So, not only are they going through the exercises and learning about electronic medical records, they're actually going through a mock patient or setting up a mock schedule. We're not telling them something, we're showing them what an EMR system is so they have a general idea so they can actually put that on a resume. Not all electronic medical record systems are the same but just knowing that you've had some experience with that is always a good thing to put on your resume. that's usually always a very fun course to go through.”

There’s also SimTech simulations that you’ll practice on before getting to the physical lab part of the course.

Theresa explains, “They’re given a scenario and it's going through skills like a medical assistant would do like rooming a patient, blood pressure, putting the stethoscope in the right place, and pumping up the sphincter manometer to the right amount and hearing. It gives you the beeps or the blub blubs so you can read what the fake blood pressure is. It’s a combination of multiple-choice, simulation, and a lot of decision making.”

The anatomy and physiology courses (A&P) use AP Revealed to explore human anatomy and view body structures in 3D. The medical assistant program keeps you on your toes with a variety of learning activities, simulations, readings, and quizzes.

Theresa: “I see a lot of young adults just entering the workforce. Some of them are entering it because their end goal might not be to be a medical assistant. They're doing the program because they do want to be in the medical field. Their end goal is to be a nurse or go a few steps above. I do see a lot of older adults as well who are looking for another career path that can help support their family. We also see a lot of students who are already working as medical assistants, but maybe their employer or something with state licensing or something like that is requiring them to have some formal education or certification. So, I've seen a lot of that too.”

Pam: “I usually tell them my story because I started at a college as a medical assistant. I sat in the same seat that they're sitting in now. I tell them I enjoy being a medical assistant because there are so many other like careers that you can branch off into just by starting from or as a medical assistant. My experience in offices may be different, history may be a little different, but there have been some days as a medical assistant where I may have been starting off the morning doing phlebotomy, and sometimes things change where I end up on a desk or end up grooming patients. So, I always tell them my day was never the same day twice because you never know, you know, what, where you'll be needed, and the more skills that you have, the more places you can go.”

As far as the medical assistant externship, Pam has this simple advice: “Make sure [you] take good notes, show up on time, and be enthusiastic. Ask questions because when you're out there in the field, you're still a student.”

Theresa also shared her advice for students: “[Don’t] be intimidated by it because while it's fast paced, there's so many rewarding moments just helping a patient.” She shares her feelings about starting her externship: “I was like the most nervous person in the world about giving or doing blood pressure on a patient for the first time and it didn't stop until a couple of times. So just doing it and just realizing that be patient with yourself because I mean just give yourself a break and realize that you're a student and you're learning, and the practice makes perfect and just do it.”

She states that the ideal person for this job is caring and empathetic and likes a fast-paced environment. Both reiterate that to do well, you must, “Never be afraid to ask questions.”

Life happens. We get busy, have emergencies, and can’t always dedicate the time we need to our schooling. But, staying on-track and motivated is vital to successfully passing any online course. In the medical assistant program at Penn Foster, faculty offer plenty of opportunities to receive help, feedback, and tutoring. Theresa shares that they coach the students and help them take a step back. They also offer one-on-one appointments that can be used to get help with skills, homework, or locating resources. In fact, there is a learning resource center for the medical assistant program that contains plenty of supplementary content to help you understand concepts and hands-on skills.

Theresa and Pam tell us about some of the false information they hear about medical assistants.

Theresa starts us off: “I’m going to say an obvious one, but a medical assistant isn't the same as a physician's assistant. So, you won't be writing any prescriptions. You're there to support the doctors because from my experience there have been some people who get into this role and they're like, ‘I thought I was going to be doing this and that.’ No, you're going to do vital signs, take blood, etc. Stuff like that.”

Pam mentions a fact that many students don’t know, which is, “Each state has different requirements for medical assistants. It all depends on where you are located. What you may not be able to do in New York, you may be able to do in Michigan. I always tell them to go by the guidelines within your state and the facility of where you're searching for work because that'll be different too. There’s a lot of things that medical assistants don't think they'll be able to do that we're teaching. It all varies based on where they work.” Click here to see state licensing requirements.

It’s a common misconception that online learning is all theory, no practical. This is far from the standard at Penn Foster, where skills are taught in a variety of ways. This includes multiple hands-on skills lessons and labs.

Theresa believes that the Penn Foster medical assistant program, “Is a unicorn because we do that little extra step to make sure that they're more comfortable when they're out there before they start.” Pam agrees, saying that it reassures her that her students will do well in their externships because she has been able to watch them practice skills and give them feedback.

With classrooms containing 10-15 people, you will not get the one-on-one help that you do with an online program. Sharing from her experience in school, Theresa says that in her class, she did not get the attention she would have liked while practicing hands-on skills. “When [you] submit a video, our instructors take the time to watch it and grade that student until they’re passing or they can set up a one-on-one with Pam or the other certified instructors. So, I feel like that's an added touch. It makes them a little bit more confident in themselves as opposed to being in a classroom of 10 people and raising their hands and asking questions. You could just ask Pam right then and there, and Pam is very open and warm.

Since medical assistants play such a large role in patient care, we’re focused on making sure our classes can help prepare new medical assistants for the role. The Medical Assistant Program has a set curriculum, but it is updated to make sure it stays at the forefront of medical knowledge.

Theresa: “We are trying to make it more relevant and a little bit more interactive, so it's just not read this chapter and write this essay. Every year we try to improve on what we have, and we try to home in on very specific skills medical assistants need. We're always changing, we're always making sure that we're up to industry standard, and we're always trying to go above and beyond. Right now, we're going piece by piece through a curriculum update on each course. We must make sure that we're hitting all the benchmarks, not just to be perfect on paper with a certification. We want our graduates to set the benchmark for others in their field. We just keep making sure that our curriculum is grade A.”

Read more: Where Can I Work As A Medical Assistant?

Pam: “Always keep learning because the more you learn, the further you'll go, especially in the medical field. You have to be open to change to be relevant within the field. Never stop learning.” Theresa emphatically agrees, adding, “Try to be the best human that you can while you're out there. Nobody likes to go to the hospital; nobody likes to go to a doctor. But you just got to be very perceptive of everybody's feelings and make sure that you're doing everything for the patient. The patient is key! Also, you’re the doctor’s eyes and ears before they see the patient. You have to observe and communicate anything that you see from the patient’s body language to the doctor.”

Remember, a patient is likely sick or nervous, and the last thing they want is a rude medical assistant taking care of them. Pam sums up our chat in the perfect, succinct message that all medical assistant students should follow: “Always be at your best to make sure that the patient is put at ease.”

At Penn Foster, you can gain the knowledge and skills that can help you take the next step toward a healthcare career. With so many ways to learn the material, help from your instructors, and hands-on skills practice, it’s a flexible, supportive way to get a medical assistant education. Are you ready? Start your medical assistant journey today: request more information, enroll online, or reach out to our Admissions Specialists at 1-888-427-6500.