In this course, students explore the Gateway Technical College community. They examine college resources and services, investigate skills that lead to academic success, and identify strategies for achieving educational and personal goals.

This course requires students to integrate and apply knowledge and skills from all previous medical assistant courses in actual patient care settings. Learners perform medical assistant administrative, clinical, and laboratory duties under the supervision of trained mentors to effectively transition to the role of a medical assistant. This AAMA required externship lasts between 160 hours (AAMA minimum) and 216 hours.

Reviews the fundamentals of grammar. Emphasizes practical application of English in business correspondence.

This course prepares students to display professionalism and perform within ethical and legal boundaries in the health care setting. Students maintain confidentiality, examine legal aspects of the medical record, perform risk management procedures, and examine legal and bioethical issues.

This course introduces students to classifying indications into correct drug categories and applying basic pharmacology principles. Students apply basic pharmacodynamics to identifying common medications, medication preparation, and administration of medications used by the major body systems.

This course introduces students to health insurance and finance in the medical office. Students perform bookkeeping procedures, apply managed care guidelines, and complete insurance claim forms. Students use medical coding and managed care terminology to perform insurance related duties.

This course prepares students to perform patient care skills in a medical office setting. Students perform clinical procedures, including administering medications, assisting with minor surgery, performing an electrocardiogram, assisting with respiratory testing, educating patients/community, and maintaining clinical equipment in an ambulatory care setting.

This course prepares students to perform laboratory procedures commonly performed by medical assistants in the ambulatory care setting under the supervision of a physician. Students perform phlebotomy, immunology, hematology, and chemistry laboratory procedures.

This course focuses on the component parts of medical terms: prefixes, suffixes, and word roots. Students practice formation, analysis, and reconstruction of terms, with an emphasis on spelling, definition, and pronunciation. They are introduced to operative, diagnostic, therapeutic, and symptomatic terminology of all body systems, as well as systemic and surgical terminology.

The focus of this course is the use of technology in healthcare. Learners use common business software applications, including word processing, presentation, spreadsheet, and databases. Communication methods using technology are addressed. Learners gain experience with using the electronic health record (EHR). Healthcare EHR security issues, social media use, and digital healthcare resources are examined.