A nursing assistant refers to a nursing aide who has obtained a nursing training and has a certificate to prove that.
The basic job profile of a nursing assistant is to take care of the patients as they undergo their treatment at the hospital.
The caring job is not an easy task as you will have to go beyond your inhibitions and help the patient, irrespective of what type of person the patient is.
In fact, the medical assistant has to take care of some close personal needs of the patient like bathing the patient, changing the diapers of the patient and helping the patients to the bathroom.
Apart from these, the medical assistant is also trained to check several basic medical conditions of the patients like taking the pulse, measuring the respiratory rate and the temperature and preparing the medical history of the patient.
The medical assistant is also trained to collect blood, urine, stool and saliva samples of the patient and carry on the basic medical analysis of these samples at the lab.
The medical assistant is thus of great help to the medical officer who just goes through the medical records of the patient and suggests which way the treatment should be continued.
Doing a nursing assisting job requires a valid certification and training.
The training can be obtained at the various institutions that offer courses in nursing assistance.
These courses can be a long-term one or a short-term one and after the end of the course the student is provided with a certificate.
However, the student has to pass an exam, combining both theoretical and practical knowledge, before he or she receives the certificate.
The student can prepare for the exam in two ways.
The first way is to enroll in a regular course and attend classes everyday and thus learn about the profession.
This is the best process to learn for those who are completely new to the profession.
The other way of getting a certificate is to register at the course and then carry on with the studies without attending classes.
This type of option is best for students who are already working in the healthcare sector and are looking to increase their prospects of promotion by doing a medical certificate course.
In either cases a thorough understanding of the theoretical and practical aspects of the course is required in order to pass the exam and receive the certificate.
There are more than one ways to receive the training as medical assistant.
Firstly, you can take the course from an accredited institution offering the course.
Sometimes big nursing homes and hospitals set up their own training centers and train people free of cost, but under the condition that the student should work for a certain time at the hospital free of cost after completion of the course.
If such an arrangement is convenient to you then you can also choose it to receive your training.
The best way, however, is to receive training from international NGOs like Red Cross who provides such training to those who are interested in the profession.