Profile of an occupation – medical assistant

Demanding and diverse

Most people encounter medical assistants at least once a year when they visit their doctor. Medical assistants are regularly involved with coordinating appointments and collating treatment records. But the tasks they perform are often underestimated. Their activities extend significantly beyond supporting and advising patients prior to and after treatment. Medical assistants help with examinations and surgical procedures, for example by applying wound dressings and providing support in emergencies. They are required to conduct hygiene measures and to sterilise instruments and apparatus. Medical assistants know how to recognise infectious diseases and which protective measures need to be initiated. They carry out injections, take blood samples, complete laboratory tests and categorise examination findings. They also prepare patients for surgical interventions, care for wounds and remove stitches.

Medical assistants do not only work at general practitioners’ surgeries, specialist practices, hospitals and other medical facilities. They also find employment at medical laboratories, in occupational health departments at companies, in the public healthcare sector, or at healthcare institutions and organisations.

Indispensable: social competencies

Medical assistants must arrive at a rapid assessment of the condition and emotional state of ill people. They need to stabilise them in difficult situations and sometimes have to undertake activities which are unpleasant for those concerned. It is also necessary to reassure impatient patients. For this reason, the training of medical assistants also covers the avoidance of communication failures and conflict resolution. Communicative competency is also a key prerequisite in patient education, for example in matters relating to diabetes or exercise. The emphasis here is on being able to accord greater consideration to the psychosocial conditions governing patient behaviour and to the particular characteristics of special patient groups (persons suffering from chronic illness, for instance).

Medical assistants are subject to a high degree of emotional stress. In an online survey by the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, 85 percent of around 7,600 respondents stated that there had been a rise in the number of insults or threats directed towards surgery staff by patients over the past five years. It has also been shown that communication challenges can increase in critical situations such as the coronavirus pandemic. For this reason, it is important to learn about de-escalation methods and communication strategies in order to be able to overcome difficult circumstances. Strategies aimed at dealing with emotions in a healthy way also help people to maintain good control over their own emotions and to react in an appropriate manner externally. A positive revaluation of the situation may, for example, be more helpful than simply repressing the negative emotion. At BIBB, the approach adopted by the ProSECoM project is seeking to foster three social competencies which have been identified as being central to the occupation of medical assistant specifically. These are emotion regulation, perspective coordination, and communication (link in the Information Box).

Medical assistant – purely an occupation for women?

15,591 women concluded a new training contract in the occupation of medical assistant in 2023. This made it the second most popular training occupation for women. 831 out of a total of 16,422 young people commencing training as a medical assistant in 2023 were men. This represents a mere five percent.

There is virtually no other occupation in which the imbalance between men and women is greater. Nevertheless, the proportion of men has risen continuously over the past years from a figure of just under two percent in 2014 (cf. Figure).

Major clinics are observing an upwards trend with regard to the numbers of men. One of the reasons for this is thought to be the broad task spectrum. Unlike in most other training occupations, there was notably no collapse in the number of new training contracts during the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, the figures rose significantly. 17,439 young people commenced training in the occupation of medical assistant in 2021 as compared to 15,582 in 2020.

The digital shift – an opportunity and a challenge

Advancing digitalisation in the healthcare sector is directly impacting the work of medical assistants. Surgery management systems which assist with the documentation of treatment processes and the recording of services for billing purposes, electronic doctor’s notes and electronic patient records will all be both challenges and time savers in future. Increasing use will also be made of smart networked laboratory and analytical devices to carry out examinations.

Advanced and continuing training

There are various opportunities to pursue further qualifications in the occupation after completion of initial training. One example is Master Professional in Health Service Management. There is also a multitude of topic-specific, provider-specific or institution-specific continuing training options in areas such as outpatient surgery, dialysis, or gastroenterological endoscopy. 

(Compiled by Arne Schambeck, BWP)

(All links: status 22/01/2025)

Translation from the German original (published in BWP 1/2025): Martin Kelsey, GlobalSprachTeam, Berlin