My Life As A Medical Assistant Essay

In the beginning of fall of 2016, I got a job as a medical assistant. It’s long process to get this sort of job, at least with the University of Utah so when I finally went through the orientation, lab training, computer training, and community clinics I got to work and realized there was, even more, training. Every clinic has its personal preferences and rules, so I had to start from scratch with the training I already had. As soon as I got therenoticeI was a given a quick tour of the clinic and given all the rules, passwords and regulations. It was already too much to handle, but I was memorizing as much as I could. I can’t always function under pressure, but I tried not to let my nerves get to me.
This is my first job so I didn’t know

what to what to expect. Everybody looked so busy and on their toes, I was a little more intimidated than I should’ve been. The doctors were the scariest part for me; some of them were so specific with what they wanted and had no time for mistakes. It was a new world for me and I know should’ve gone in there with a positive mindset, but something about taking care of people made me nervous. I couldn’t stop thinking about how the smallest mistake could seriously hurt someone or even kill them. I work in family practice so it wasn’t that fast paced and dangerous, but anything could still happen.
After hours of training and shadowing people everyone got to go to lunch, I’ve never been so relieved and I just happen to finish early and got back to work to try and see how well I memorized all of the computer work. While I was working one of the front desk employees
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called for “rapid response”, basically if there is an emergency, employees have to rush to the scene, but at the time I didn’t know what that meant.

The medical assistant I was shadowing came running in and told me to follow her, I didn’t ask any questions and followed.
An elderly woman came in on her scooter and said she needed help while she was losing consciousness. We had to take her to one of our room immediately and the second she was put in the room she was asked a bunch of questions she couldn’t answer at the time. As I nervously watched another emergency happened down the hall and my mentor had to run to that, emergency, she turned to me and said “You can handle this right? You went through all the training so you should be good!” before I could say anything she closed the door behind her. It was that moment I realized I wasn’t trained on what to do in emergencies.
I took a deep breath and told myself it wasn’t going to be that bad and I could just use my instincts. As soon as I turned around the woman fainted, but luckily she was still breathing. She woke up about 30 seconds later and she asked what was going on, I tried to explain as much as I could, but I was just as lost as she was. I started asking all the appropriate questions and this time she had the energy to answer

them.
To my relief, the head nurse came in and rechecked the vital signs and told me I did everything correctly. I was excited to know I did what I had to do, but the woman started to complain about how freezing she was, her temperature was also dropping and once I saw the nurse getting nervous, all of my nerves started to rush back.
The nurse said the ambulance was called, but she didn’t know why it was taking so long, unfortunately she told me to stay and keep an eye on her. I gave her a blanket, but she kept complaining about how cold she was. At this point her voice was getting so quiet it was as if she
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was whispering. She took out her phone and started to call someone when I asked about what she was doing she said she needed someone to watch her dog and probably keep it. I didn’t know what to say at the time because I knew saying “it’s going to be okay” was a promise I couldn’t keep.
Her vitals started to drop a bit, but she was speaking just fine so I didn’t think much of it.looksBecause she was telling me about her kids I didn’t noticed her eyes getting sleepy again, she fainted mid-sentence. I froze because this time I was alone with her and didn’t have anybody to tell me what to do. She was in her electric wheelchair so she fell forward and it look painful. Fortunately, I caught her before she hit the floor and another medical assistant came in and helped me put her on the bed, he asked if I knew how to work with IVs, I didn’t so he showed me. When we set up the IV the woman started to regain consciousness, so that must have meant she was dehydrated, I was just relieved to hear her voice again.
The other medical assistant had another job to do so I was left alone with her once again. Her vitals were up to normal ranges again and she was telling me stories about her past life again, but all I think about is the next moment I wouldn’t be prepared for.
I couldn’t believe I forgot all the schooling I went through in a matter of seconds. I’ve never been good under pressure, but I was embarrassed to say that I completely froze the second I was faced with a challenge. I started wondering if I should even continue being a medical assistant because it was obvious I didn’t have it together just yet.
At that moment the woman snapped me out of my insecure thoughts to tell how grateful she was to have me with her the entire time. She told me about how she was a regular patient and nobody worried about her like I did. I told her it nothing, but she assured me it wasn’t, she said
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she’s never had anybody make her feel so safe and how she wished everybody were a little more like me.
When she said this I felt a little better about myself and thought maybe I wasn’t such a bad student after all. I still couldn’t help, but think the other medical assistants didn’t think I was so great because every time they asked me to do something I found just looked at them blankly. I started to overthink about what they thought of me, but the woman made me feel like I somewhat knew what I was doing.
I was really interested in how she was thanking me for such little things like when I asked her how she was doing or if she needed water. She even said she has been coming here for years and rarely hears the words ‘I’m sorry’ whenever she’s not feeling well. I didn’t know people paid attention to such little things. I guess when people get busy they stop doing those little things just because it doesn’t need to be said.
After a couple of hours the ambulance finally showed up and started to put the woman in a gurney and strap her up as they were leaving they asked me for all her vital signs and any information they might need to know, as I relayed everything they told me I did a good job keeping up with everything while she was unstable and I made a big difference. The woman thanked me again as she left, I was relieved she was leaving, but at the same time, I felt bad for not listening to her stories a little more closely.
When I went back to the work station my mentor told me what a great job I did and apologized for leaving me without telling what to do first. She couldn’t believe I did everything without being told to and was really impressed by me. Another medical assistant told me she would have been so scared if she was in my position, I started to realize I didn’t have to worry about being scared because I was in an alarming situation and anybody else would be nervous.
After the clinic calmed down a bit I was thanked by the main doctor for staying with the patient when everything was going wrong that day. She promised me it wasn’t going to be like that every day, I think that was the best news I heard all day. The main doctor was the one I was afraid of the most so it meant the most coming from her.
The head nurse also told me I did a great job and told me I could go home for the rest of the day because I must have been shaken up by everything. I got to go home four hours early and had an interesting story to tell.
The main doctor was right the rest of my days there weren’t as exciting and scary as my first day. I was told if I went to Intermountain emergency clinic that would be a regular day for me. I was okay with family practice and working with people of all ages and conditions. I personally never had a day like that again, but if I did I’m sure I’d be ready.
It’s been more than six months working there and I still think about the woman who came in on the first day. She never came back to the clinic so I’m hoping that she went to live with her daughter in New Jersey like she told me. I didn’t think one person would make me feel so much better about myself. She really gave me a lot of confidence that day.
From that day on, I started to see my job a little differently I wasn’t scared to try new things, especially with younger patients. I still get lost and make mistakes sometimes at the clinic, but I know it’s nothing any other medical assistant hasn’t been through. Because of that one the incident, I started to trust my gut and stopped doubting myself every time something went wrong.