How to Get a Medical Assistant Externship?

A medical assistance externship program is very important and helpful for a candidate to gain lots of pre-experience and exposure to the real time medical setting and everyday job duties that are carried out there. Medical assisting is a healthcare line of work that calls for practical erudition in an externship background as an element of the professional education of the students. Basically, externships are carried out while a student is still learning in a training program.

A student shall revolve through one or more medical or organizational area as a vital fragment of their externship practice. Even though, the coordinator of the medical assisting training program will lend you a hand in discovering a suitable opportunity,  you will also be given the freedom to discover an externship program single-handedly.

Know the requirements

In the first place, to get a medical assistant externship, you should gain enough knowledge about the requirements. For instance, a student should know the following factors:

• The total stretch of time (in number of hours) that you require to complete the program.
• Your personal agenda, such as, the number of hours that you can make yourself available to work at an externship.
• The requirements of your training school’s administrator.
• Find out the areas of medicine in which you are learning additional concepts. Create a catalog of those areas with top 3 or 4 choices out of all.

The factors that are discussed above are the crucial requirements that you must be familiar with before you start to search for a place to perform a medical assistance externship program.

What’s more? Find out the rules and regulations of your training institution’s ‘Externship Guiding Principles’. A good number of training schools expect their students to complete a definite period of externship hours that is considered to be an indispensable factor for the successful completion of a training program. In addition, students may be asked to complete different turns of rounds in an externship in various learning areas of the medicine. At times, they are also requested to complete these tasks in more than single health check facility. Gaining a comprehensive knowledge about all this information can help you in finding the right externship program that suits best for your requirements.

Discuss with your medical instructor or training program coordinator

Almost all training schools will maintain the complete catalog of health care places where former trainees have completed their externship program. Often, such inventories are recorded and maintained by the medical instructor who will be supervising the students externship skills and understanding. You will get more information if you have a detailed discussion with the medical instructor of your training program. In addition, try to dig up the complete list to know more about numerous health care associations and physicians in your local area or neighborhood. These organizations might be keen in offering you an externship.

Make inquiries at various physician’s work places

Given that the most part of medical assistants are employed in physician’s offices as assessed by the ‘U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’, physician’s offices are considered to be the key locations to start your exploration for a medical assisting externship. You can begin with physicians who are included in the catalog that you obtained from the medical instructor. This is because a majority of the doctors shall be more approachable to your application as they have already sponsored several externships to a number of medical assistance candidates.

You can make a phone call to the health center in the list or catalog (or even to a hospital of your own preference) and can converse with the human resource manager or with the organization’s manager. Inquire him/her about the availability of an externship. If  they have any availability, request them to arrange for an externship interview for you to attend. All the same, don’t forget to make contact with other physician’s who are not included in the catalog as well. It is highly possible that they may also in need of a proficient medical assistant but may be oblivious of the medical assisting externship line up.

Make inquiries to the former students of the training program

In case, if you are in touch with any former students who have graduated from the same medical assistant training program where you are learning, you can contact them for their recommendation, ideas and advices on the externship program. Since these alumnus have prior experience, they can provide you with the information and location where they finished their externship program. In addition, they can also provide you with the essential awareness and insight of things to anticipate while attending an externship. Into the bargain, if you happen to contact a former student who is working at present as a medical assistant in a physician’s office or in a health care association, he/she might very well help you to get into a medical assistant externship program that might be vacant at his/her place of work.

Consult with the neighboring nonprofit organizations

There may be a number of nonprofit groups or associations in your neighborhood area who have health care service center’s that offer some free of charge or abridged medical services to the community. Often, these non profit associations will offer externships programs to the right candidates since it may help them to lessen the tension that they face over and over again due to the lack of doctors and nurses at their health check facilities.

Seek help from your friends and family members

Work hard to promote your need for a medical assistance externship program among your friends and family members. You can let your friends and family know about your requirement for an externship program. This way of promotion or advertisement can be a valuable way to find a good externship. Basically, your family members or friends shall get in touch with their general physician’s and several other health professionals who work in different fields of medicine. As a consequence, they might have contacts with some health care centers who are willing to offer you a externship program at their location. Moreover, you may be on familiar terms with some friends or family members who are employed in the health care industry. In such a case, they will be able to suggest a health care location that offers an externship.

Some other valuable sources

• Making use of the ‘yellow page’ phone address list.
• Exploring several job fairs that are held at your place.
• Through proficient associations.
• Organizations or Companies that hearten the course of getting in touch with them through their website and at times, in person also.

Few supportive guidelines

1. Begin your hunt for a medical assistant externship program as soon as possible. You can have discussion with several experienced Medical Assistants. In addition, you can also get in touch with some of the health care workplaces and its employees so as to get acquainted with the exact role and moreover, to get additional awareness about the well-suited health care job. As said always, commitment and uphill struggle will always pay off.

2. If at all possible, search for a program that comes with an extension preferably. An extension is a great opportunity for an individual candidate to continue his externship program under the title of ‘Associate Employee’.