Thomson Delmar Learning's Careers in Gear

Thomson Delmar Learning's Careers in Gear quarterly magazine is a magazine for career colleges that are working to drive innovation in health care education. This quarterly publication is a great source for information on starting new healthcare programs, meeting accreditation standards, and improving student education and retention. This is just one of the ways Thomson Delmar Learning goes beyond the traditional publishing model and truly partners with you, our customers.

The following article is from Volume 4 of Careers in Gear:

Spotlight on Medical Assisting: Teaching “Soft” Skills
By Cathy Kelley-Arney, CMA, RMA, MLTC, BSHS

Medical assisting graduates entering the workforce have demonstrated their knowledge and skills across multiple courses throughout the program curriculum. However, once employed, one of the most frequent comments regarding these graduates is the lack of the “soft” skills so important for the overall success of a medical assistant.

What are these elusive soft skills? Some frequently mentioned points are:

• Professionalism
• Tact and sensitivity
• Respect
• Positive attitude
• Empathy and compassion
• Willingness to be a team player
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Good time management
• Attention to personal hygiene
• Excellent communication skills
• Continual desire to learn
• Ability to take criticism

Educators wrestle with the dilemma on how to teach such an abstract component in addition to assessing it. When developing curricula for programs, much attention is paid by authors, publishers, and educators to prepare the students for employment as well as certification.

For educators seeking initial accreditation or maintaining continuing education, many textbooks, workbooks, instructor resource materials, and online resources reference accreditation criteria to this end. For CAAHEP accredited programs, there is a minimum expected goal for each program “to prepare competent entry-level medical assistants in the cognitive (knowledge), psychomotor (skills), and affective (behavior) domains.”

The cognitive domain is relatively simple for instructing and evaluating as is the psychomotor domain. Students can be quizzed, tested, given homework, assigned research papers, and can be evaluated on their skills and knowledge multiple times. But, is this all there is to educate and prepare a competent medical assistant? Certainly not!

While soft skill topics are covered in textbooks, simply defining for example, professionalism – or respect – or empathy will not suffice to impact a behavioral change in the student. Often due to time constraints, an instructor will cover the topics as presented without focus on the meaning of them for a successful career. Each of these areas, in addition to others identified in your program, must be integrated throughout all aspects of the student's education to adequately prepare the graduate for successful entry into the workforce. One of the best methods to emphasize such skills is for the instructor to set an excellent example in the classroom and continually reinforce these areas while evaluating the students on their knowledge and skills bases. Remembering that students learn by example and emulate what they see and hear through your own soft skills will help to prepare a much better and well-rounded graduate that will succeed in their profession.

Besides setting a good example through yourself and your instructors, here are a few ideas for getting your point across to the captive audience of your students:

• Have “dress for success” days that demonstrate the correct and incorrect ways to dress for the job as well as the interview.
• Have role-playing in the classroom so students will gain more of an understanding of what is appropriate or inappropriate.
• Ask employers in the medical assisting field to come to your campus as guest speakers to talk about their experiences in interviewing, good applicants as well as poor applicants and the reasoning behind their thoughts.
• Arrange for resume writing seminars prior to graduation so that students understand how to correctly prepare such an important document.
• Design the externship evaluations so that if a student does not respond well to criticism, the supervisor can record it and you can discuss it with the student privately.
• Utilize the resources such as DVD series from publishers for critical thinking skills, problem-solving, correct responses for verbal and nonverbal communications, positive attitudes and the like often in the classroom so that students do not simply learn the skills and the theory but the affective (behavioral) adjustments that are required to be successful as medical assistants.
• Conduct mock interviews and film them; play the recording back for the students to see their posture, attitude, facial expressions, and manner in which they respond to the questions.

Completing a program with a 4.0 GPA does not mean much if the graduate has not developed and does not possess these very important skills.

BACK TO CONTENTS PAGE