Medical Assistant vs. LPN

The difference between nursing and medical assisting TRAINING is that medical assistant courses are geared toward ambulatory care and medical office management. The curriculum typically covers general, clinical, financial, bookkeeping, and administrative areas of knowledge. Medical Assistants are also trained to handle medical office administration tasks, patient scheduling, and medical transcription.

Nursing training mainly focuses on the foundations of nursing, which essentially is "how to take care of people" that are sick, injured, or with special needs. This includes workings of the body, disease processes, medical management of diseases, conditions and nursing interventions associated with each disease, chemistry, pharmacology, which covers common medications, their uses, side effects, route, dosage and actions.

Training for Medical Assistants and Nurses

In short medical assistant training prepares students to work in a medical office, insurance and billing and medical records management, which is not typically taught in a nursing program. while nurse's training is geared toward hospital or institutionalized patient care. The medical assistant vocational training program takes up to 9-11 months, or less, to complete. Some medical assistants are trained directly on the job without any formal training.
A Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) can spend 12-18 months in an accredited nursing school and then must take the National Council Licensure Examination-Practical Nursing (NCLEX PN).

The Registered Nurse (RN)associate degree takes at 2 years of full time college attendance, followed by the entry-level Nursing Competence Exam for Licensure as Registered Nurses, the NCLEX-RN. There also are 4 year programs in nursing.

Difference Between a Medical Assistant's and Nurse's Work Schedule and Responsibilities

A Medical Assistant works different hours, usually first shift, from 8-5 PM and rarely on weekends or holidays, which some feel are better hours for parents. Nurses work different shifts around the clock. Some pull doubles and they usually must work on weekends and holidays, at least some.

Medical assistants are utilized in different capacities in the administrative, laboratory, or clinical areas, depending on the office's specific needs.  Very small family practices may have the expectation that the medical assistant covers all areas, front and back. Medical assistants may specialize in certain clinical areas and may have authority to administer specialized medications under a doctor's supervision. They often specialize in pediatrics, general family practice, gynecology, dermatology, rheumatology, podiatry, cardiology, pulmonology, asthma and allergy, ophthalmology, and many other.

An ophthalmic medical assistant is an example of a specialized medical assistant who may, for example, perform a simple eye-exam using the Snellen eye chart and administer eye medications under the direction of the attending physician.

Check the jobs in your area to see who is hiring medical assistants and who is hiring LPNs and for which kind of areas. While it may not apply to all positions you may find that the expectations, duties and responsibilities are generally the same for both, medical assistants and LPNs when medical offices (doctors) recruit their staff.

Other significant differences:
• wages
• hours
• duties
• responsibilities
• scope of practice
• supervision

Medical assistants are often preferred by doctors in private, or group practices, because they are more cost effective than RNs or LPNs; but then again, each discipline has its specific place and uses in different settings. While most doctors prefer to hire medical assistants to assist with typical medical office tasks, such as registering new patients, appointment scheduling, co-pays, vital signs and many other routine medical office procedures, RNs and LPNs are just that (registered and licensed) and therefore are legally able to perform more complex patient care procedures. Anybody would be hard pressed to state with occupation is better than the other (a never ending discussion that has been going on for decades on the Internet).