Medical/Clinical Assistant

Types of Degrees Medical/Clinical Assistant Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many medical/clinical assistant graduations there were for each degree level during the last year for which data was available.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Undergraduate Certificate	37,342
Basic Certificate	9,731
Associate Degree	5,013
Bachelor’s Degree	2

What Medical/Clinical Assistant Majors Need to Know

In an O*NET survey, medical/clinical assistant majors were asked to rate what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important in their occupations. These answers were weighted on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most important.

Knowledge Areas for Medical/Clinical Assistant Majors

According to O*NET survey takers, a major in medical/clinical assistant should prepare you for careers in which you will need to be knowledgeable in the following areas:

• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.

Skills for Medical/Clinical Assistant Majors

When studying medical/clinical assistant, you’ll learn many skills that will help you be successful in a wide range of jobs - even those that do not require a degree in the field. The following is a list of some of the most common skills needed for careers associated with this major:

• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others’ reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
• Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.

Abilities for Medical/Clinical Assistant Majors

Medical/Clinical Assistant majors often go into careers where the following abilities are vital:

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.

What Can You Do With a Medical/Clinical Assistant Major?

Below is a list of occupations associated with medical/clinical assistant:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Medical Assistants	29.0%	$33,610

Who Is Getting a Bachelor’s Degree in Medical/Clinical Assistant?

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

At the countrywide level, the racial-ethnic distribution of medical/clinical assistant majors is as follows:

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	0
Black or African American	0
Hispanic or Latino	0
White	1
International Students	0
Other Races/Ethnicities	1

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Medical/Clinical Assistant

Some careers associated with medical/clinical assistant require an advanced degree while some may not even require a bachelor’s. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

Find out what the typical degree level is for medical/clinical assistant careers below.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
High School Diploma - or the equivalent (for example, GED)	10.6%
Post-Secondary Certificate - awarded for training completed after high school (for example, in agriculture or natural resources, computer services, personal or culinary services, engineering technologies, healthcare, construction trades, mechanic and repair technologies, or precision production)	66.9%
Some College Courses	7.1%
Associate’s Degree (or other 2-year degree)	18.4%

Online Medical/Clinical Assistant Programs

The following table lists the number of programs by degree level, along with how many schools offered online courses in the field.

Degree Level	Colleges Offering Programs	Colleges Offering Online Classes
Certificate (Less Than 1 Year)	0	0
Certificate (1-2 years)	881	28
Certificate (2-4 Years)	7	0
Associate’s Degree	438	29
Bachelor’s Degree	1	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	1	0
Post-Master’s	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Majors Related to Medical/Clinical Assistant

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to medical/clinical assistant.

Major	Number of Grads
Pharmacy Technician/Assistant	6,707
Physical Therapy Assistant	5,993
Other Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services	4,121
Occupational Therapist Assistant	3,647
Emergency Care Attendant (EMT Ambulance)	3,195
Radiologist Assistant	1,446
Clinical/Medical Laboratory Assistant	616
Respiratory Therapy Technician/Assistant	454
Anesthesiologist Assistant	382
Speech-Language Pathology Assistant	295
Pathology/Pathologist Assistant	187
Lactation Consultant	58

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• College Scorecard
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers First Quarter 2020

More about our data sources and methodologies.