Hi everyone, i'm new around this messege board. My name is Melanie, i'm a 24 year old married mother of two.

I start the Medical Assisting program at my community college in May. I'm so excited! I know this is the career for me. I hear tons of negative things about this profession, but I over look the bad. I'm determined to be a successful student, as well as a successful MA. Sure, the pay is low, but as a secondary income (my husband makes decent money), it's fine with me. I want to be a MA for the love of the job, not the money.

What classes did you all take? I have a full load coming up, i'm quite nervous. I already work 25 hours a week, take care of my home and my 2 children. Here's my classes:

Summer 08:
General Psych
Medical Terminology
Integrative Anatomy and Physiology
Fall 08:
Intro to medical assisting
Medical assisting administrative procedures
medical assisting clinical procedures.
Introduction to human communication
Spring 09:
Intro to diseases and pharmacology
Lab procedures
Externship
Clinical externship.

For my MA program:

Introduction to Composition 1 and 2
Intro to Algebra
Medical Terminology
Anatomy and Physiology
Intro to Psychology
Sociology
Medical Office Procedures I--Admin.
Intro to Billing/Coding
Medical Office Computers
Medical Office Procedures II--Clinical
Nursing Pharmacology
Med Math
Basic X-ray
Medical Transcription

And then in May I start my externship.

Aw man! I want to learn xray! I wonder if it's covered in the clinical part of class....

You should be going over everything,including starting a urinary catheter and an IV but you will only be shown the equipment and told how it is done. You will study radiology but most programs will not include training in how to do
X-rays,and they should. The more skills you have,the better.
There should also be a big emphasis on medical billing since that seems to be the field to get into now,from what I was told.

In my x-ray class, all we really learn how to do is position people for the most common x-rays. I have no idea how to actually work the control booth, as my school doesn't have a real x-ray machine (health hazard).

We're not going to learn how to do catheters, but we're going to learn how to start IVs (on a fake arm, of course).

You should should be taught how to do a cath since an MA is more likely to start or change one before they ever do an IV. MAs can do their externship on an ER,where you might be doing one. The most you would be allowed to do with an IV is disconnect one.

I talked to my clinical instructor about learning to insert urinary caths, and she told me that generally that's a duty of CNAs and Nurse.

I did learn how to start an IV (on a fake arm, of course) on Monday, and it was very interesting. Granted, you need special training/licenses to actually do IVs in real life, but I still think it's good to know.

I would like to learn how to insert a urinary cath, though...