Greenfield Community College (GCC) is launching a new one-year Medical Assistant Certificate (MAC) training program for the Fall semester beginning September 3, 2013.\u00a0 The 29-credit program prepares students for entry-level Medical Assistant positions in healthcare providing a combination of medical office and patient care services in doctor's offices and other health care facilities.\u00a0 A 160-hour practicum gives students hands on skills in a professional setting before they enter the job market.\u00a0 The program provides assistance with career skills and job placement.\u00a0 The MAC program prepares students for the Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) exam given by the American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA).\u00a0 The CMA credential is recognized nation-wide as the industry standard for preparedness in the Medical Assistant field.\u00a0 Employers generally want their Medical Assistants to become certified within 6 months to a year of their hiring date.<\/p>\n
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment growth for Medical Assistants in the US at 30.9% between 2010 and 2020, adding 62,900 jobs and making Medical Assisting one of the fastest growing health care professions.\u00a0 The median annual wage was $29,100 in 2011.\u00a0 The flexible skill set developed by Medical Assistants provides a good entry point and an opportunity for mobility across a wide variety of health occupations.<\/p>\n
According to Terry Lynn, dean of Business, Information Technology, Health Occupations and Professional Studies at GCC, \"We are thrilled to be able to provide another entry point into the health care field for people in our region by giving this new MAC program a secure home at GCC.\"<\/p>\n
There will be a MAC Information Session on Wednesday, July 24 at 3:00 p.m. in Room C208 on the main campus.\u00a0 The information session is an opportunity for prospective students to decide if the program is a good fit and for accepted students to meet the staff supporting the MAC program.\u00a0 There will be a question and answer session about the program, admission, financial aid, advising and other details.\u00a0 Qualified applicants will be accepted in the order in which they complete all of the admission requirements until the 12 seats available in the program are filled.<\/p>\n
To apply to the MAC Program, prospective students should first complete the application to the college online at gcc.mass.edu\/admission<\/a> and.\u00a0 There will be instructions for the additional steps required to apply to the program.\u00a0 For more information about the application process, contact Laura Earl at Earl@gcc.mass.edu<\/a>\u00a0 or (413) 775-1816.<\/p>\n GCC's Medical Assistant Certificate (MAC) program is supported by the Massachusetts Community Colleges & Workforce Development Transformation Agenda (MCCWDTA), which is 100% funded through a $20 million grant from the US Dept. of Labor, Employment & Training Administration TAACCT.\u00a0 Grant agreement #TC-22505-11-60-A-25.<\/p>\n # # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Greenfield Community College (GCC) is launching a new one-year Medical Assistant Certificate (MAC) training program for the Fall semester beginning September 3, 2013.\u00a0 The 29-credit program prepares students for entry-level Medical Assistant positions in healthcare providing a combination of medical office and patient care services in doctor's offices and other health care facilities.\u00a0 A 160-hour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-1361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}