The Article in Brief
Patterns of Relating Between Physicians and Medical Assistants in Small Family Medicine Offices
Nancy C. Elder , and colleagues
Background Medical assisting is one of the fastest growing professions in the United States, and MAs are vital to new primary care practice models, yet little is known about their relationships to the clinicians with whom they work. This study aimed to understand MA roles and describe the clinician-MA relationship.
What This Study Found MAs' roles in small practices are determined by their career motivation and relationship with the clinician(s) with whom they work. Based on these findings, the authors propose a new model for this relationship, which they call trust and verify, characterized by different configurations of physician trust and verification of MA?s clinical activities.
Implications
- These findings may assist small offices undergoing practice transformation and guide future research to improve education, training and the use of MAs in the family medicine setting.