im autistic af and i rely heavily on scripting to talk to people. i usually will ask my patients if they have plans for the rest of the day but im looking to branch out into other small talk topics to ask to build rapport. what are some of your guys' go-to small talk questions with patients?
hi! I'm in need of some advice!! right now i'm working in retail and i absolutely HATE it. i've been looking into a career switch into healthcare and want to make the change ASAP!
what kind of programs are out there and how long do they take to complete?? i live out in the middle of nowhere and the nearest course being offered is almost two hours away and i would have to commute 5 days a week, so I'm looking for a mostly, if not fully, online program!
As the title says : I QUIT, FINALLY
I don’t even care anymore
I hate being underpaid, under appreciated, and overworked . Over the micromanaging and having 0 flexibility. Working 8-5 for $18 an hour .
I have been an MA at this clinic for almost 1 year now and I really tried to stick around but it was taking a toll on my whole life I couldn’t do it anymore. I know there’s better out there I will not be giving up on my MA career as a whole.
I can’t even recognize myself. I wasn’t taking care of myself and felt like I was on fight or flight mode the entire time. From leaving on Friday my mind was just constantly consumed with the thought of everything I had waiting for me on Monday so I never ever ever felt relaxed.
On top of that I’m a full time student pursuing my bachelors for Physician Assistant school (which I will not give up on) I’m also a single mother . I felt like I wasn’t giving my baby my 100 after work because I just felt so defeated from the work day , that’s when I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I hate hate hate neglecting myself , I had 0 flexibility to take self care days , never had time in the office to read a book or talk to my daughter, I CANT LIVE LIKE THAT.
Well anyway the only reason I am okay with quitting is because I hurt my back recently, I’ve been back and forth with my PCP and today she wrote me an excused absence for work today because I went to her office to get an X-ray
And they’re not acknowledging that as an excused absence. My supervisor actually said because my PCP is not within their employee health system (my PCP is with another hospital) it doesn’t count… NEVER heard of anything like that but it’s policy I guess .. so they’re not excusing this absence and it’s another absence… welp I actually don’t care because I quit. I’m picking up my things tomorrow.
I feel relieved I don’t even care. I was driving an hour to and from .
I have a part time I’ll be starting a couple days a week, I’m going on vacation on Friday and I can put my all into my 3 classes I’m currently taking AND take my daughter to all of the activities I’ve missed out on . So this isn’t a loss , I know there’s something more for me out there closer to home with better pay. I’ve been waiting for the right time, it came sooner than I expected but I’m not mad at all .
I LOVE BEING AN MA, I DONT LIKE THIS PLACE THOUGH🙌🏽
Are there any MAs that are required to stay in the room with the provider during each visit? If you’re required to do this along with all of your other clinical duties are you still required to do admin work on top of it ie: answer phones, schedule appointments, verify insurances, etc? Do you have any downtime during the week/day where you’re not in the clinic and are able to catch up on other stuff like prior auths or do you have to find time to do everything else during clinic hours? Are you ever working with multiple providers at the same time who require you to be in the room with them? Are you the only MA working in your office?
I’ve been an MA for 8 years but with this company for 2 and I’m so burnt out from this job.
I know it’s a lot of POCT’s, blood tests, EKG’s, documenting, phone calls, non stop multitasking, etc and I know you’ll have patients from all different age groups so I’m pretty overwhelmed to be starting out in a speciality that sees literally everything and everyone. I didn’t do an externship so I’m pretty much going in blind, they are working with me to kind of get me on my feet, I’m doing clinical training through the company so it esentionally is like an externship but im being paid for it, I’m shadowing an MA in different locations as well but they are all family med clinics.
For anyone who started out in family med or has worked in family med before you were well versed what do you wish you knew? What was the best advice you received and what helped you be more confident? I have had a lot of peoole point out that I seem very anxious and it’s just made me even more anxious. I don’t try to show it but I was the only one out of my group of new hires who didn’t do an externship so it was embarrassing and still is.
I am a CNA and I have an interview this week for an MA apprenticeship in internal medicine. Does anyone have experience in this area? I would love to hear what it’s like and if there is anything I need to be aware of before pursuing this apprenticeship. Thanks!
In May 2007, a patient walked into a clinic with high cholesterol, a breathing problem, and some joint pain. The doctor adjusts their statin, notes the COPD, and sends them home.
Nothing in that visit suggests what the next decade will look like.
For the next year, the numbers are there — hyperlipidemia, hypertension, COPD — each managed in its own silo, each treated as a separate problem. Nobody is connecting them into the picture they're collectively drawing: a cardiovascular system being loaded, slowly, like a spring.
Then September 3, 2008.
The LAD artery — the one cardiologists call the widow maker — gives out. Acute myocardial infarction, anterolateral wall. This isn't a warning shot. It's a full infarction of a major coronary territory. The kind that scars the heart permanently, leaves dead muscle where living muscle used to be, and sets the stage for everything that follows.
The same admission shows atrial fibrillation has already begun. The heart's electrical system is fraying alongside the muscle.
One month later, October 2008: a stroke. The same arterial disease that attacked the heart has been advancing in the brain too. Two systems, failing at once, in the same month.
By 2009, type 2 diabetes was added to the list. The patient is now managing six conditions simultaneously — coronary artery disease, persistent atrial fibrillation, COPD, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes. Each one a full-time condition. Each one makes the others harder to control.
The anticoagulants needed for the A-fib carry bleeding risk. The diabetes is accelerating the arterial damage the statins are trying to slow. The COPD is straining a heart that's already compromised. Every treatment decision is a negotiation between competing risks.
By 2012, the atrial fibrillation had escalated to atrial flutter. The electrical architecture of the heart is getting worse, not better.
The record from this period runs to over 160 encounters. Cardiology. Electrophysiology. Pulmonology. Endocrinology. The calendar is full. The trajectory is not improving.
September 26, 2013: the first documented ventricular fibrillation event. The heart stops coordinating entirely. Cardiac arrest.
Then it happens again. And again.
Over five weeks — September 26 to October 30, 2013 — the heart goes into ventricular fibrillation six times. Six cardiac arrests. Six times someone brings it back.
October 17, 2013: cardiogenic shock. The heart can no longer maintain enough pressure to keep the organs perfused. ICU. Vasopressors. Without intervention, more than half of patients in cardiogenic shock don't survive.
November 11, 2013: a permanent pacemaker is implanted. The device that will govern this heart's rhythm for the years ahead goes in.
The patient leaves the ICU. The pacemaker holds. Life continues — but survival comes with a cost that gets paid in installments.
September 2015: acute pericarditis. The sac surrounding the heart becomes inflamed — a new crisis layered onto an already compromised system.
December 2015: acute decompensated heart failure. Back in the hospital. Even a heart being paced can weaken.
By 2016, the kidneys have reached Stage 4 chronic kidney disease. This is the cardiorenal spiral — years of reduced cardiac output have quietly strangled the kidneys, and now failing kidneys are limiting what can be done for the heart. Medications that might help can no longer be used at full dose. Some can't be used at all.
The COPD, noted as a background condition in 2007, has progressed to chronic respiratory failure.
January 5, 2017: the last documented encounter. CKD, diabetes, anemia. The record ends here, a decade after the first visit.
We don't know what came after.
What Actually Worked — And What Couldn't Be Undone
✅ The pacemaker — the decision that changed everything. After six cardiac arrests in five weeks, the pacemaker implanted in November 2013 stabilized the heart's electrical system. The patient survived the shock and went on to have 3+ more years of documented outpatient life. Without it, another VF event would almost certainly have been fatal.
✅ Anticoagulation held the stroke line. Warfarin/NOAC managed the stroke risk from persistent atrial fibrillation — present continuously from 2008 through 2017. No second cerebrovascular event is documented across that entire period. For a patient who had already had one stroke, that outcome is not guaranteed. It's the result of sustained, careful management.
✅ Standard heart failure therapy slowed the decline. ACE inhibitor and beta-blocker therapy likely slowed the deterioration of cardiac function after shock. The patient maintained 2+ years of outpatient life before the next major decompensation in December 2015.
✅ 160+ visits over 10 years meant nothing was missed. When the kidney disease escalated, when the respiratory failure emerged — it was caught. Not perfectly. Not fast enough to reverse it. But early enough to respond.
❌ The kidney damage couldn't be undone. Years of reduced cardiac output had been quietly destroying renal tissue. By 2016, CKD Stage 4 had become the dominant diagnosis — and was now limiting which cardiac medications could safely be used. The organ that bore the cost of circulatory failure became the one most in need.
❌ The COPD reached its endpoint. What was noted as a background condition in 2007 had progressed to chronic hypoxic respiratory failure by 2016. Every breath became an effort. No cure. Only management.
I have been researching medical assistant programs for the last couple weeks and honestly getting overwhelmed by the pricing.
I work full time right now so I need something online/flexible but I also dont want to waste months on a program employers wont take seriously.
I have to take a drug test (sent to lab) tomorrow. I stopped smoking about 6 days ago, but smoked regularly before that about 2 times a week for a month. Anyone have last minute hacks to pass that aren’t fake urine or using someone else’s urine?
Hi I recently moved in to New Mexico Albuquerque, I am looking to connect with someone living here who is in the medical field, I passed all my USMLE exams step 1-3 and I am currently seeking for a medical assistant position to strengthen my clinical experience, please if anyone in the medical fields (MA, CNA, Nurse, IMG, Resident, physician… ) live here, I will be very happy to meet you
I’m a new MA I’m not getting paid enough 🥹 any suggestions 😮💨
I’ve (19F) been a CNA for about a year and a half now and I had a pretty intrusive experience with a resident trying to touch me (as he did successfully a time before that). When I brought it to management attention as a freshly 18 y/o (a year ago)I was met with “we won’t put him on your assignment” (which they did the next shift) and the Charge nurse telling me to take it as a compliment because I’m young. I took a break as I was per diem and I’m just wrapping up my second semester of pre nursing credits (both of which i did 20 units in) so I wasn’t working during the school year. This summer I have an internship where I’ll gain experience as a medical assistant but I wanted to see those of you who are MA’s how your experience is? As for where I live it’s mainly checking people into appointments, intake and vitals etc. Which is a lot better than the ratios we had a the SNF. I don’t want to go back to being a CNA but I do really need the money and I’ve debated working nights. I can afford to take the class but I need to have a steady source of income is kinda where I’m going with this. Any advice on what course to take and or how long it took you to complete or even where to avoid working- anything helps Thank you!!🙏🏻
Guys, long story short my program was 4 months and in person classes was only once a week sometimes every other week for 3 hours. We only went over one or two clinical skills each time, so I was also never consistently practicing the same skills. For example, if I did an injection, we wouldn’t go over injections for another 3 weeks to a month. I’ve never even done an EKG, and so much of the “training” was online videos.
Anyway, I’ve been certified since January, I recently got hired at a family practice and have been going through origination for about a week. Orientation is a long process here, and consists of a lot of “class” type of work. Tests, going over clinical skills, demonstrating how to do x, y, z, EMR training, etc. I am no joke the most ill equipped person in the room every day. I’m the only one who hasn’t done an externship, and no one else there did such a short program. Mine was 4 months, everyone else’s was 9. I was low-key tricked into choosing the “cheaper” option when I was going through the financial assistance process (I didn’t get financial aid I’m not disclosing what it was for privacy reasons) I feel like I am a student not an employee simply refreshing my knowledge. One of the other girls went through the program at the school I was originally going to go to, and I’m just so mad I chose the “easy” way instead of prioritizing a program that would actually insure I was competent.
I feel like I don’t know anything, we had to demonstrate how to do a strep, flu, and mono test today and even with the instructions right in front of my face I froze up and panicked bc it’s becoming more and more real to me that I did not have a good education and I am not prepared to work with patients. I understand that maybe for some people, once a week classes over the course of 4 months would be fine, but I have adhd and it takes me more time to absorb information and understand things than the average person so it wasn’t really a good decision to do an excelerated program. Had we of had class two or 3 days in a row I think I would’ve been okay but like it was once a week and like I said we wasn’t going over the same things consistently so I couldn’t even make sure I knew how to do one skill before we were moving on to something else. There was no time for actual practice, it was you do it move on to next student you do it, be out by 1pm, it was very rushed, at least it felt that way.
I’m going to be talking to my clinical instructor who is going through orientation with us and explain the situation, we are actually encouraged to tell them if we feel like we are behind, that way they don’t think we’re prepared, put us out there and then we perform poorly and fhats exactly my fear, it’s hard to admit I’m not at the same level as my coworkers but I can’t risk potentially endangering patients.
I’m just wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation where you went through a program and realized once you were hired that the education you got didn’t prepare you for the actual job? Cus that’s the thing, I felt fully prepared for the NHA exam, but wjen it comes to actually working as a medical assistant? I feel like I’m playing dress up:(
I keep getting rejected. I’ve been through 2 interviews, then offered 1 interview (then ghosted since I replied 2 days later— they were offering interview after 24 hours of sending the interview). I did not pass either of them. The most recent interviewer said she would contact me today to let me know the results, but it’s approaching the off hours of the clinic and I think she’s going to reject me. I was supposed to get a clinical assessment on Tuesday if I passed the interview.
I applied to 30 jobs, with 1.3 years of experience as an MA volunteer. Got a certification from NHA, trained virtually by US Career Institute. I’m from the Sacramento-Davis area in California.
What can I do better? What helped you pass your interview?
^(The largest school district in my area hires CCMAs instead of nurses for the elementary and high schools (probably because we're cheaper to employ) and they've been at the last 2 local job fairs in my area. If you have experience working in a school, how different is it from a typical medical office or hospital? The idea of having every weekend, holiday and summers off sounds really good)
I’m looking for new jobs right now. I work as an MA at a private ENT clinic. We also do audiology services. Working there is … fine I guess. But the office manager is extremely rude and crabby all the time. The doctor also scares me and can be a major micromanager. I’m constantly getting micromanaged and blamed for every little mistake.
I make $21/hr and have been there for a year. I’m applying to other MA jobs right now and ideally would want a different specialty but that is hard bc I’m not certified and most jobs require that.
I got a message from another private ENT place which seems much larger, more providers, more locations, and more established. I don’t know that it would even offer much more money.
Should I consider it? I’m thinking it would be extremely awkward when they ask what my new job will be and it is in the same specialty.