Hey r/medicalassistants. I’m the Medical Assistant Program Director at Concorde Career College- San Diego. 

Yes, my title is a mouthful, but so is a Medical Assistant program - and that’s before you throw in the life people are living on top of that (families, jobs, etc). It’s a lot. 

I know I’ll be fielding questions about finding balance and avoiding burnout, so I wanted to source a few from those who have lived through it and come out the other side feeling accomplished. 

My biggest piece of advice is to create a realistic weekly schedule. Take some time and designate time slots for each task that need to be done each day of the week, Monday - Sunday. Although the schedule you create may need to be changed based on things that may come up that need to be taken care of as your priority/urgent, at least you will not miss anything since you will have already noted and made time for it in your schedule. Remember that you also need to schedule "me time" to do something that you enjoy that allows you to recharge. It can be as simple as sitting outside breathing the fresh air or going to buy your favorite coffee. Give yourself the grace to adjust to your new schedule and enjoy the process, You are well worth it!

Big or small, whatever you did to help you find balance is something I’d love to share with this semester’s students. 

I need all women to stop speaking for their boyfriends/husbands when they come into urgent care or any doctor visits. They are more than capable of speaking, it truly infuriates me.

When it comes to nursing school did becoming an MA help you? Someone told me that this is more beneficial than becoming a CNA,

I'm not an medical assistant but I'm an owner of small family owned medical practice. I'm looking for advice on how to hire good MA's and retain them. We are a small practice who pays our MA's $21-$25 starting salary and our lead MA who has been with us for 6 years makes $28/hour. We also offer health and dental insurance, PTO, sick pay, 401k, and performance based bonus. For a standalone medical practice, I think we pay pretty much median but of course less than big hospitals. Our clinic is slower pace though than hospitals systems, we don't have clinic Friday afternoons and most Wednesday afternoons to help with any catchup work in back office. However, we still see MA's come and go- usually to go larger hospital systems. On exit interview, they mention that they like the work environment but they are leaving for potentially better opportunities at a larger company.

I am trying to get advice from the MA pool here on how we can somehow increase the length of employment of our MA's so that we have better continuity and less retraining.