Have no HCE but may have a job offer even though i have no certs

[place123]

I just finished my bachelors degree and my plan was to get an emt cert and then look for a job. I currently don't have any certifications to work in patient care.

 

A friend of the family is a nurse practitioner who runs a clinic in town and said she is looking for someone to train as a front and backoffice medical assistant. It is a primary care clinic which is the field i want to work in.

 

I don't know how good this would look on my resume though as I don't know exactly what I would be learning.

 

I think the emt route would be more marketable to PA schools but im not sure of that. I would be able to accumulate almost 6 months more of experience going the medical assistant route.

 

Anyone have any opinions about this?

[mtnpa]

I would take it and ensure that you have a good amount of back office work. That 6 months is a lot of hours you can't make up through the emt route and don't underestimate how long it takes to get hired for a job, depending on where you live.

 

There's nothing wrong with being an MA. I volunteered a bit at a cardiologist and you do learn a lot as long as you make sure you are doing more than just bringing patients back to a room (i.E. vitals, hx taking, help with simple procedures etc)

[DiggySRNA]

Take the MA job and get cross trained to perform both back and front office. I work as an uncertified MA at an urgent care and it's one of the best experiences I have so far compared to my prior jobs. Adcoms will certainly not look down on your application. Best of luck.

 

ps, see if they can email you a detailed description of the position before you pursue it so you at least know whether it'll allow you the exposure of patient care experience needed for PA school admission.

[woodlingj]

MA is pretty common for applicants and I've heard of many people who were trained on the job rather than certified. It also looks very good on applications, just make sure that you are doing more back office work than front office work. Or you may want to split your hours on CASPA according to roughly how much you did each (back office would be direct PCE, front office would be HCE). 6 months full time is about 1,000 hours so that is a huge help to your application. At least in my area, EMT jobs are actually pretty hard to come by even once already certified so if I were you I'd take the guaranteed job.