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Are you considering a career as a medical assistant? If so, completing a medical assistant externship is essential for your professional development and certification.
On this page, we will share everything you need to know about medical assisting externships and some tips on finding the perfect one for you. ✔️ Page Updated: October 16, 2024
If you are interested in working in healthcare as a medical assistant, then read on to discover why a medical assistant externship should be at the top of your list.
Overview of a Medical Assistant Externship
Program Completion / Certification: Most medical assistant programs, including online medical assisting programs, will require completing an externship of 140-320 clinical hours. Completing one of these medical assisting programs and externships is required for certification.
Work experiences: A medical assistant externship places you into the mainstream of work experiences firsthand in a healthcare facility by employing those things learned in the classroom.
Better job prospects: Completing a medical assistant externship adds weight to your resume and makes you a catch for most employers. Work experience during an externship proves that you are able to undertake various responsibilities and work cordially in a healthcare team.
What is a Medical Assistant Externship?
Externship is a short-term practical learning process where a medical assistant student gets to apply their knowledge and skills within a healthcare facility. It provides an opportunity to work with professionals besides getting work experiences in performing both clinical and administrative skills.
Examples:
- Clinical Experience: Students would be working with medical assistants to get closer to observing and assisting with patient care, taking vital signs, and giving medication.
- Administrative Experience: The trained staff can also train them on appointment scheduling, maintaining medical records, and insurance billing.
Duration and Requirements of a Medical Assistant Externship
In the medical assistant externship, students will be able to implement their knowledge in the real environment. Often, such clinical practicum duration may take several weeks and months depending on how many hours one is supposed to complete; it falls between 140 to 320 hours of clinical practicum. Sometimes this is based on completion of certain course works, and sometimes it is a certification that allows students to get into an externship. Such work experiences expose students to observing professionals firsthand and gain some useful skills that will enable them to seek worthwhile employment in the health profession.
Benefits of a Medical Assistant Externship
- Gain practical experience in a real healthcare setting
- Develop essential skills and knowledge through hands-on training
- Improve job prospects by building a strong professional network
An externship means class learning is applied to real situations, affording you a depth of experience that few job candidates will have. You shadow experienced professionals while they do daily tasks and learn from those people with expertise. Connections you will make through an externship can often lead to future jobs.
5 reasons why a medical assistant externship is essential for your career
1. Gain Practical Experience
Practical Experience: Medical assistant externship is the on-the-job experience within a healthcare clinic that allows one to put into operation the theoretical knowledge gained within the classroom setting. The work experiences help you to understand how certain medical procedures, treatments of patients, and general health care are guided and develop core competencies.
Hands-on Learning: You can have greater hands-on experiences during your medical assistant externship in a real healthcare environment. You apply knowledge acquired from the classroom to develop skills that will add value to your career.
Exposure to several types of procedures: In an externship, you will likely observe and assist in a number of medical procedures. These different types of exposure enhance learning not only within different specialties but also act to give confidence to eventually perform such procedures independently.
2. Build Professional Network
You will be exposed to field experts during the course of your medical assistant externship. Networking with doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals opens paths for future job opportunities and mentorship.
Building a very excellent professional network is quite significant to career progression and advancement.
Building a professional network is vital in a career as a medical assistant. In this respect, you would have a very good opportunity to communicate with other professionals in this area of study, get a lot of information regarding the profession, and find prospects for future employment. You can attend conferences, join professional organizations, and be sure to actively participate in online communities to continue building your professional network and keep them current with what is happening in healthcare.
Additionally a solid professional network will bring forth mentorship opportunities. Building relationships with people already in your professional field will coach and support you through your journey in your career path. Additionally, networking also helps in bringing credibility to one in the industry by showing one’s skills and how serious one is about learning.
3. Increase Employability
Completion of a medical assistant externship depicts your commitment to learning and professional growth. It adds valuable experiences to your resume that most employers look forward to when seeking to hire a medical assistant.
Taking an externship will boost your employability as a medical assistant. Workplaces will respect your work experience from externships, since this is one way of showing your ability to apply theory in practice. Furthermore, during participation in an externship, you can show your adaptability and readiness for learning-a factor that will definitely distinguish you from other job candidates.
4. Explore Different Medical Specialties
Identify medical specialties that interest you. Externship is available in a variety of healthcare settings where one can identify areas of interest in a medical specialty. It gives you insight into areas that interest you and where your skills best fit. This will be helpful to shape your career path as a medical assistant.
Identification of a medical specialty is quite important in the line of a medical assistant career. You can widen your knowledge through exposure to many types of fields and find out with which specialty your interest and skills really match. This not only opens up new avenues in your profession but also renders quality service for the patients as you may attain expertise in certain aspects. Such opportunities as rotations or shadowing may provide great insight into various medical specialties and help you find the way that will suit you best.
Moreover, doing an externship in different medical specialties allows you to have first-hand experience of the particular challenges and rewards that each of these specialties can present. You have experienced it firsthand-professionals at work, observing patients, and becoming part of a healthcare team across any specialties. Multifaceted exposure broadens the base in patient care, with honing of essential skills across disciplines, making you a very well-rounded medical assistant, able to adapt to any clinical setting.
5. Boost Confidence and Skills
During the externship, you are working with experienced practitioners. That itself helps you gain more confidence in performing your clinical tasks autonomously. You develop other key skills in communication, time management, problem-solving, and teamwork in the field. It lays a very good foundation for starting a successful career as a medical assistant.
An MA externship may be just what you need to build self-confidence and skill. You will get practical exposure to working in health care and be better equipped to handle challenges of the profession. This will also serve to enhance your clinical skills, your communication skills, and instill within you a sense of professionalism. You will be more confident of yourself, and you will be able to work in any medical environment since you are subjected daily to interaction with both patients and health professionals.
How long is a medical assisting externship?
A medical assisting externship may last between 140 and 320 hours, depending on the program and educational institution. This clinical exposure forms an important part of the study program for medical assistants, putting theory into practice in an actual healthcare environment.
How long the externship lasts will depend on a few factors. For example, a minimum number of hours may be required in order to achieve an accreditation or certification for the program. Other times the externship may be part-time or full-time, also depending on the location and the entity offering it. Of course, students will need to check the specifics of their program to see exactly which requirements they will have to meet.
Medical assisting externship provides real, valuable work experience and sometimes closes the gap between theoretical knowledge and service delivery. They provide students with an opportunity to become involved in several fields, ranging from hospitals to clinics and private medical practitioners. Through this, a medical assistant would benefit from broad knowledge of the field and further look into areas of interest to them.
What tasks will I perform in a medical assistant externship?
Medical assistant externship provides an excellent opportunity for the individuals to gain hands-on work experience in the medicine sector and develop those skills which are quite crucial for becoming a successful medical assistant. You will be asked to perform several activities while working under the supervision of healthcare professionals.
Some of the responsibilities you will handle in this position include the following:
- Patient Care: As a medical assistant extern, you will have the opportunity to administer direct care to patients, including but not limited to taking vital signs, recording of information about patients, and preparation of patients for examination.
- Medical Records Management: You update patient medical records in a timely manner to completeness using proper use of the guidelines of HIPAA. This also includes maintaining electronic health records, updating, and releasing requested patient information by authorized personnel by applying using company policies and procedures.
- Administrative Responsibilities: These are usually entrusted upon medical assistants including appointment scheduling, reception of telephone calls, and helping answer all queries of patients. As a student on externship, you may be asked to assist in these areas to help you improve your administrative skills.
- Laboratory Procedures: Some may require you to assist them with some minor laboratory procedures such as the preparation and collection of the specimen, conducting selected tests, and disposing of all materials utilized properly.
- Sterilization of Equipment: Medical assistants care about the cleaning of medical equipment, which includes cleaning, sterilizing, and readying the tools for action amongst others. Some of the clinical experiences that you will be assigned to help in cleaning and disinfecting instruments or restocking them.
What type of medical facilities offer medical assistant externships?
The medical assistant externship provides experiences in applying knowledge in the field within a number of health care settings. Some common types of medical facilities offering medical assistant externships include:.
Hospitals: Many large hospitals will have full externship opportunities available to the medical assistant student in one or several areas including, but not limited to, the following list: emergency medicine, surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine. This would provide a student with exposure to many different medical conditions and treatment options.
Clinics: Most medical clinics, from primary care and specialty clinics to urgent care, generally take students in for their medical assistant externship opportunities. This clinical externship experience may expose the student to every detail pertinent to outpatient care: patient intake, vital signs, medication administration, and assistance with minor procedures.
Physician’s Offices: Many of the private practices regarding family medicine, internal medicine, as well as specialty practices, may take medical assistant students for an externship. Assistants working in such settings may perform direct patient care like patient examination, record keeping, giving injections, specimen preparation, and administrative duties.
Long-term Care Facilities for Skilled and Assisted Living: This facility allows the student to participate in the care of the geriatric resident by assisting the resident with activities of daily living and medication administration and by communicating with the resident and family.
Rehabilitation Facilities: The students will be brought to a rehabilitation facility for an externship experience to help patients who are recovering from a certain surgery, injury, or illness. It may include assisting patients in doing their exercises during physical therapy, monitoring of their vital signs, and assisting them with their mobility and activities of daily living.
Ambulatory Surgical Centers: Medical assistant students may be placed in ambulatory surgical centers to observe surgical procedures and perioperative care. It is possible for them to take part in the preoperative assessment, sterilization of surgical instruments, and postoperative care of the patient.
Laboratories: Some of the medical assistant externships exist in the laboratories where specimen collection, its processing, and performing some basic tests and assays are carried out. The students will learn how to assure accuracy and quality control when performing laboratory procedures.
Community Health Centers: Students on externship may be taken to community health centers where they participate in providing health care to poor people; they will take part in health testing, patient teaching, and outreach programs.
Imaging Centers: Here, the students of a medical assistant course can be exposed to different imaging procedures such as X-rays, ultrasound, and computed tomography scan during their externship in an imaging center. They can position the patient, prepare the equipment, and document the images. Research Facilities: Some of the medical assistant externship programs might fall under the category of a research facility whereby one is subjected to clinical research work. Examples of such work may include but are not limited to patient recruitment, data entry, and research protocol maintenance.
Finding a Medical Assistant Externship
As your medical assistant program comes to a close, you will start your externship. Following are some of the ways you can begin finding the best opportunities for externship.
Career Services
Externship opportunities for medical assistants can be found through the career services program at the college. The staff helps the students in finding the opportunities, making professional resumes and cover letters, and preparing for interviews. In addition, most colleges have developed certain links with local employers who may offer these types of opportunities and are able to provide insight into how one goes about applying for and interviewing for such positions.
Job Search Websites
Websites like Indeed, Glassdoor, and Monster offer the best tools which students can use in their search for medical assistant externships. These websites present a host of job postings that employers put out for all to see in search of competent personnel to fill these posts. Further to this, through these sites, many tips and resources on how to make a catching resume, how to write a successful cover letter, and how best to go about preparing for an interview have been provided. Local Clinics
Local Clinics
Local clinics are the best avenue for the students to get field exposure in medical assisting. Several of those clinics would offer externship opportunities and can provide invaluable on-the-job training under the watchful guidance of trained professionals. Such externships may range from short-term observation opportunities to long-term hands-on experiences.
By: Brian Dickens, MBA PhD
A common question we get from medical assisting students is, “How can I turn my Medical Assistant Externship into a job?”
Although the main purpose of your externship is for education and experience, it is smart to be thinking about working full-time afterward if you are happy at the clinic you extern with.
Also, employers offering externships are doing so as a part of their recruiting process to find new full-time employees.
So, grab a cup of coffee and read some advice from a Medical Assisting program director who helps students find jobs after completing their externships.
Getting Hired After a Medical Assisting Externship
If you are interested in turning your externship into a full-time job after graduation, there are some specific techniques you can use to increase your chances of getting hired.
Many employers who offer externships do so as a way to try out and recruit new full-time employees.
Although externships are a way for Medical Assisting students to gain knowledge and experience working in their field; externships are just as much a way for employers to test individual’s potential and determine how well suited they are with the organization’s overall culture.
Almost all employers utilize externship programs as a part of their hiring process. It offers them an opportunity to test out new employees while saving money on their recruiting efforts. They prefer to learn how you will perform during your externship BEFORE extending a full-time offer.
Tips for Turning an Externship Into a Job
Below are tips for turning your externship into a full-time job offer.
By following these guidelines, you will perform great during your externship and even if you don’t receive a job offer then you should at least gain a positive reference that will help you find one.
- Make a Good First Impression
Meet with everyone (administratively and clinically) and learn who is who. Make sure you take the initiative to introduce yourself and exhibit a positive and friendly attitude to everyone you meet. The more people that know you the better your chances are of becoming a part of their team. Making a good first impression will go a long way, so even if you only get to meet some folks one time try your best to make it a good introduction.
- Research Employers
Learn all that you can about the company you will extern with and the healthcare segment they serve. Your College is a great place to start as most have relationships already established with externships. You can also reach the company online as well. The more you know about the company and can share during your externship, the more interested you will seem and the more you will fit in with the company’s culture.
- Keep Yourself Busy
Set an agenda for the day and keep busy. There is always something needing to be done to improve the quality of the day. Believe it or not, employers are watching your work ethic. Of course it is ok to take breaks from time to time, but if you lack productivity then you are not going to be a good candidate to be hired full-time.
- Continue Your Professional Knowledge & Education
Successful externs take the initiative to learn as much as possible during the short duration of their externship experience. Read Medical Assisting articles, Healthcare Field Related Articles, and Medical Journals so that you stay up to date with your industry and can have educated discussions with your co-workers.
- Be Open to Doing the Grunt Work
Learn everything from filing records to minor surgery. Day one, meet with your supervisor and review your goals and expectations of the externship. Remember there are menial tasks included in all jobs and pitching in and doing your share will show that you are a team player and multi-tasker. If you aren’t willing to work hard during your externship, then your employer won’t view you as a hard-working candidate for a full-time position.
- Always Ask Questions
Externship is off campus continued training but in a real healthcare setting. You are not expected to know everything so take this time to ask questions about everything you are not sure of. Employers have stated that the students who ask questions are the ones who they think are more motivated and really want to be part of the industry. The more questions you ask, the more interested you are perceived.
- Find a Mentor
Be a sponge and learn from those that you admire (which can lead to networking opportunities to further your career). Professionals enjoy sharing their knowledge and expertise; they want to help those who are just beginning in the field. Not only will you learn much from a mentor, they may be the person who ultimately recommends that you get hired after your externship. Mentors can be great teachers and also great references.
- Be Professional
Have a positive attitude, professional image (both inside and outside of the office), avoid politics, office gossip and make good use of your time. You should always come to work clean, dressed appropriately in clean clothing, awake and ready to work, and focused on the tasks at hand. Discussing personal issues, political issues, gossip, or anything crude at work will reflect negatively on you as a job candidate.
- Network & Build Relationships
Try to communicate with your co-workers in each department. Finding new ways to assist new people is a great way to show your value. Developing relationships is the key to a good start to your career, sometimes all a job offer takes is one employee recommending you. Networking will also help you to advance in the healthcare field.
- Stay Motivated & Keep in Touch!
Motivated students tend to rub off on each other and have a positive impact on the organization as a whole. Staying motivated throughout your externship will not go unnoticed, employers are much more likely to send an offer to someone who brings positive energy to their organization. After you finish your externship, stay in touch. Send a thank you letter to everyone that you worked with while on externship. Studies show that sending a thank you letter may also be the reason that secures the job.
Conclusion
Part of a medical assistant’s schooling involves the externship. A medical assisting externship can range from 140-320 hours. The practical exposure forms an important constituent of their training, where medical assistants in training can put their knowledge from the classroom into practice in this genuine healthcare setting. During this process, students are placed with accomplished practitioners, observe the performance of medical procedures, get a chance to interact with patients, and assist with administrative duties. The length of the externship will depend on several factors, including requirements for accreditation or certification and whether the program is considered part or full time. Whatever the length may be, a medical assisting externship provides practical experience for a person, thus helping in giving one the skills and confidence that will be needed for the future ahead.
