Medical Assisting Degree (MAS)

Medical assistants perform a combination of clinical and administrative duties in a medical setting. Clinical duties include assisting doctors with examinations, drawing blood, placing patients in rooms, administering immunizations, removing sutures, assessing vital signs, and applying wound care. Administrative duties include scheduling appointments, answering phones, billing insurance companies, making referrals, and phoning in prescriptions. Because medical assistants work in an office environment, most work regular day-time hours. The Medical Assisting program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Programs (CAAHEP), on recommendation of the Medical Assisting Review Board: CAAHEP, 1361 Park Street, Clearwater, FL  33756; phone 727-210-2350. Clinical courses are offered only during the day at the Gardner campus. For more information, please call 978-630-9357.

Campus/format: A majority of this program can be completed during the day at the Gardner Campus.

Helpful hints: Some courses are offered only in the semester they are shown in the guide; students must register for these courses when they are offered. Students must apply for selection into the clinical portion of the Medical Assisting degree during the second semester of the first year, (by April 15^th).

Transfer options: This program prepares students for immediate career entry. However, for a complete list of transfer agreement options visit MWCC’s transfer services website: http://transfer.mwcc.edu and www.mwcc.edu/3plusone.

Special requirements: Students must demonstrate keyboarding proficiency by either successfully completing CIS101 or successfully passing the keyboarding placement exam. Immunizations, additional liability insurance, and a Criminal/Sexual Offender Records Information (CORI/SORI) check are required for student externs.  Technical standards must be met with or without accommodations. Students must pass all MAS and BIO courses with a C+ or better to remain in good standing in the MAS program.

Certification: Graduates of MWCC’s accredited program can become certified by taking and passing the national Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) Exam (only students who graduate from an accredited program are allowed to sit for this exam).

Career options: Most medical assistants work in the offices of physicians, chiropractors, optometrists, and podiatrists. Others find employment in hospitals, insurance companies, and other health care facilities.

Earning potential: $21,970 to $31,210.

Program Competencies for MAS

Upon graduation from this program, students shall have demonstrated the ability to perform the following administrative, clinical, and transdisciplinary competencies:

• Clerical functions
• Bookkeeping procedures
• Special accounting entries
• Insurance claims
• Fundamental principles
• Specimen collections
• Diagnostic testing
• Patient care
• Communication
• Legal concepts
• Patient instruction
• Operational functions

Technical Standards* for MAS, MOC and MCC

* For general information about technical standards and accommodation, see page 68.

All technical standards listed apply to MAS. Technical standards that apply to MOC & MCC are indicated by **

Students entering this program must be able to demonstrate the ability to:

• Comprehend textbook material at the 11th grade level. **
• Communicate and assimilate information either in spoken, printed, signed, or computer voice format. **
• Gather, analyze, and draw conclusions from data. **
• Be able to type 30 words per minute for three minutes with three or fewer errors using the “touch” method of typing. **
• Write at a college level as evidenced by completion of ENG098 or placement into ENG101. **
• Distinguish shapes and colors under a microscope.
• Read typewritten text and patient data from a computer screen with or without corrective devices. **
• Discriminate color in order to identify reagents and other materials such as laboratory media, stained preparations, and the physical properties of various body fluids.
• Possess the manual dexterity required in such tasks as performing phlebotomy; operating blood analyzers and laboratory information systems; handling small containers of potentially biohazardous specimens (one inch by one inch); using sample measuring devices such as pipettes; giving injections and being able to adequately focus and manipulate a microscope and, using the small muscle dexterity necessary to do such tasks as gloving, gowning, and operating controls on machinery.
• Traverse the hospital and laboratory corridors, passageways, and doorways (minimum width, three feet).
• Communicate with patients and staff in the English language.**
• Maintain cleanliness and personal grooming consistent with close personal contact. **
• Possess hearing with or without corrective devices to be able to transcribe medical dictation from recorded media. **
• Comprehend and respond to the spoken word of all age-specific groups.**
• Function without causing harm to self or others if under the influence of prescription or over-the-counter medications. **
• Function without causing harm to others. This would include situations that may result from chronic mental or physical conditions. **
• React quickly, both mentally and physically. **
• Work as a member of a team. **
• Remain calm, rational, decisive, and in control at all times, especially during emergency situations.
• Identify behaviors that would endanger a person’s safety and intervene quickly, with an appropriate solution, in a crisis situation.
• Exhibit social skills appropriate to professional interactions. **
• Respond to distress sounds, visual distress cues, emergency alarms, and vital sign assessment equipment.