Medical or veterinary assistant?

Medical Assistant in Texas?

• Help me find out about obtaining a Medical Assistant certification/License in the state of Texas. A friend of mine is considering a move to Texas. Currently she's employed as a Medical Assistant here in California. She went through the course and is a Certified Medical Assistant, registered with the http://www.aama-ntl.org. However, neither of us can find out any information about working in Texas (or any other state, for that matter) as a Medical Assistant. I don't see anything about reciprocity on that website, and many Google searches have been fruitless thanks to the sheer volume of spammy "sponsored link" sites and Monster.com type job websites. My next step is to start calling folks at the Texas Dept of State Health Services and asking them, but I figured that perhaps one of you friendly folks may happen to know the answer offhand.

• Answer:

  I'm assuming you already looked through the http://www.tsma-tx.org/ for the AAMA you link above. If I were you I might email the contact person on that site to answer you question. Maybe also try looking at the job postings for medical assistants http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/job-search;_ylc=X3oDMTFocmdiZG1nBF9TAzM5NjUxMTI1MQRwYXJ0bmVyA2hvdXN0b25jaHJvbmljbGUEc3JjA2NvbnNvbGU-?partner=houstonchronicle&kw=medical+assistant&locations=Houston%2C+TX&metro_search=2&industry= and seeing what jobs that sound interesting require. Most seem to require certification from "an approved training program" and/OR a high school diploma with med assistant experience. So the fact that your friend has working experience may be very much to her benefit. From the few folks I've met that did this line of work certification was not always necessary and sometimes encouraged after by the place of employment. There is http://www.license.state.tx.us/. AFAIK the certification is not regulated by the state. That maybe why it's so hard to get a straight answer to you question - it probably varies from place of employ to place. Also look at specific http://www.memorialhermann.org/careers/default.htm / http://www.baylorfamilymedicine.org/ that you might be interesting in working. Most job listings state their requirements for hire or you can call / email and ask. There are hospitals / clinics all over the city depending on where you plan on living / working. Since it is a huge town this is something to consider when applying for work. But then many people who live here don't seem to mind commuting for more than 30/60 minutes and the freeway system is built to support that (not me - I live 3 miles from my work and that's plenty). If I were you I might also look at / call / email people at local community college that have medical assistant programs. http://www.cy-faircollege.com/ (lovely campus), http://www.hccs.edu/, and http://www.northharriscollege.com/ are a few of them. There are a number of skills schools that offer certification and I say this without knowing that much about them - but I think I'd listen to the community college advisors before I would the private business / skills schools. A few months back one of them went out of business mid semester and those poor students were simply out of luck. Didn't get their money back and previous class work paid for was non-accredited and therefore useless in terms of getting forward in their career goals. Gees sorry this is so long. Email if you want details on specific hospitals or areas of town (and maybe the state). The healthcare community is really great and huge here - there are people from all over the world and if you're into cutting edge areas you can find that too. Good luck and take this with a grain of salt. I offer this advice as an RN in Houston who went to school with people that did this and not as someone directly in that line of work. Before working as an RN I worked as a Professional Student Nurse - basically an uncertified nursing assistant.