VGCC’s Medical Assisting Prepares Students To Perform Multiple Duties
When you go to the doctor’s office or a health clinic, sometimes the same person who meets you and gets your insurance information also accompanies you to the examining room, takes your vital signs and assists the physician in medical procedures. He or she may later file your insurance claim and ensure that your record is up to date.
If that happens in this area, chances are good that the person assisting the doctor is a graduate of theVance-Granville Community College Medical Assisting program.
Medical Assisting prepares its graduates to be that double-duty performer in both administrative and medical professional tasks. Tammy Care, program head and instructor of the VGCC program, said that more and more healthcare facilities are becoming aware of the value of the multiple-skilled persons and are hiring them.
Until this year, Medical Assisting was a two-year program conducted at VGCC’s Franklin County Campus near Louisburg, and it awarded an Associate in Applied Science degree to its graduates. Vance-Granville has received permission to add a diploma program where a student can earn the diploma in one year, but they can return for a second year and get the associate degree.
Although the program is offered at the Franklin Campus, its students come from all over the four-county area served by Vance-Granville Community College. An example of this is Renita Peace, a certified medical assistant who is the office manager for Dr. Francine Chavis, an internist in Oxford.
Renita was working in administration in Dr. Chavis’ office before entering the Medical Assisting program. Since earning her Associate in Applied Science degree in 2000, she now helps with many of the clinical aspects of the office as well as managing its administrative procedures.
“The program really helped me a lot,” Peace said. “I learned a lot more about medical terminology and legal issues and the correct way to do things. In addition, I’m now able to take blood and perform EKGs, and I assist the doctor in positioning patients properly for medical procedures in the office. We learned a great deal about safety of patients in the program.”
While the Medical Assisting program is currently only conducted at the Franklin Campus, Peace said it was well worth the drive to Louisburg every day to her to get the valuable training.
Program Head Care said that students get instruction in insurance coding, medical transcription, and maintaining patient records. They also learn how to do EKGs, phlebotomy (blood drawing), operating Spiro meters and conducting basic lab tests. In the second year of the program, advanced classes are added like drug therapy and diseases and symptomology. Graduates of the program are eligible to take the certification exam to become certified medical assistants, and an overview of the CMA exam is also part of the second year curriculum.
There are jobs available for CMAs, Care said. “North Carolina is among the largest employers of certified medical assistants in the nation,” she said. “They have what doctors’ offices are looking for, and some doctors say they are hiring CMAs exclusively.”
Vance-Granville gets lots of calls, Care said, from doctors’ offices and clinics looking for graduates. Some are hired directly from the 15 clinical sites students train at from Durham to Rocky Mount, and some are working in hospitals as laboratory assistants as well as on patient floors under the supervision of licensed practitioners. Some Medical Assisting graduates even go on to additional schooling to become registered nurses.
A new class in Medical Assisting will begin with Fall Semester on Aug. 18, and slots are still available. For more information and for registration instructions, contact Tammy Care at (919) 496-1567 or VGCC Counseling at (252) 738-3343.
Deborah Rumph, right, practices taking the blood pressure of Notisha Hammond during Medical Assisting classes at Vance-Granville Community College’s Franklin County Campus. Both Rumph and Hammond are Louisburg residents and both completed the Medical Assisting program in 2002.
