Duties In The Clinical Areas (Back Office)

The Clinical Medical Assistant

The clinical medical assistant assures that treatment and examination rooms are clean, well organized, and supplies well stocked. They make sure that patients waiting to see the doctor are comfortably seated, and well prepared for their exam.

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Exam Room Chaperone

Male physicians, who perform physical and breast exams on female patients like to have a female medical assistant with them in the exam room to be present in the examination room. She stays with the physician as a chaperone during the exam to avert any misunderstandings or claims of abuse. It also helps to make a patient more comfortable during the exam.

If the patient needs to change into an examination gown or needs to be draped, the clinical medical assistant will help. Before leaving the exam room the clinical medical assistant will sift through the patient's medical chart to assure it is complete. When the next patient is seated, they place the patient's medical chart into the holder outside the door. This is the "universal sign" that the patient is ready for the doctor.

     Other Examination Room Responsibilities:

• Cleaning exam rooms and setting up for exams
• Admitting and seating patients
• Recording patient vital signs
• Assisting during exams
• Assisting with minor office surgery
• Sterilizing surgical instruments
• Administering medications and injections

Instruments and Supplies

Medical assistants bring in needed instruments and equipment and if needed, drape the patient for the examination, or treatment procedure. If special diagnostic or minor surgical procedures are ordered they assist the physician during those procedures.

Blood and Other Specimen Collections

If the physician orders a blood sample or other specimen collections, such as urine, throat and vaginal specimens, the clinical medical assistant will obtain these specimens and either properly package then to send them to the appropriate reference laboratory, or will do simple diagnostic screening tests in a small lab area somewhere in the back area of the medical office, while the patient waits.

Specimen Collection

These preliminary test results are to be done STAT and results are immediately reported back to the ordering physician so the appropriate treatment can be determined. For example, if a rapid strep test comes back positive, the patient can be put on antibiotics without delay. It is, however, very important that a portion, or additional samples of the specimen that was collected is forwarded to a clinical or diagnostic reference laboratory for cultures or more sophisticated testing, so that these initial results can be confirmed as soon as possible.

Point of Care Screening Tests

In-house quick diagnostic tests on specimens are done using simple automated equipment or "quick tests", while the patient waits in the examination room, or treatment area. These so-called point of care screening tests may include blood typing, urinalysis, vaginal smears viewed under a microscope, anemia hemoglobin testing, rapid mono and strep tests, influenza testing from a nasal swab. spirometry, audiometry, blood pressure, cardiac, pulmonary and visual screening, and various other simple tests. See examples of point-of-care tests!

Additional Responsibilities

Between seating patients and assisting the physician the clinical medical assistant is responsible for the office's on-hand supply of medications. The medical assistant must be sure that medication closets are properly maintained, no medications have expired and low supplies are restocked. It also is the clinical medical assistant's responsibility to maintain a clean, tidy and safe work environment and make sure that all surgical instruments are properly cleaned, wrapped and sterilized; also that all automated office and diagnostic equipment is clean, calibrated and well maintained.