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Page: Medical Assistant Conduct

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Professionalism and Integrity

No where is the need for personal integrity as great as in the medical and health care field where doctors and allied health professionals continually deal with people that are vulnerable and in need of care, and often have financial and personal problems.

Privileged Communication 

The information that medical assistants have access to falls into the category of "privileged communication". Medical assistants have no right to divulge any medical or personal information about a patient, however trivial it may seem, to any unauthorized individuals. The prohibition of release of confidential information is essential to the doctor-patient relationship, and the doctor's and medical assistant's integrity. 

Proper Conduct

Falsely calling yourself the nurse, or accepting the fact that someone addresses you as such, is unacceptable and illegal in many states! It makes no difference, whether the medical assistant is a complete novice, or a former nurse hired into the position of a medical assistant, he/she must be referred to as just that: a medical assistant. Medical assistants should NEVER encourage patients to call them nurse, or silently tolerate it if a patient mistakenly addresses them as such.

Professionalism

It is illegal for a medical assistant to pose as a nurse. The intent of protecting the title "nurse" is to protect the public from individuals who are not nurses, yet deceitfully lead the public to believe they are to provide certain services that only nurses are qualified to provide. Twenty four states are known to have statutory protections for the title nurse: AZ, CA, CO, FL, HI, ID, KY, MD, MN, MO, NE, NV, NM, NY, NC, ND, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, WA, WV, WI. Feel free to comment on this topic in our medical assistant web forum!

 
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