UNIT 1.    GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

                                                  LESSION STRUCTURE

1.1 Introduction
1.2 duties and responsibilities of basic Medical Assitants
1.3 Special quilities in a basic Medical Assitants

                                                       
                         1.1    INTRODUCTION


All medical practitioners who examine and treat patients either in thein clinic or in Nursing Home, need assisttance. So far as the professional assistance is concerned, this is provided by junior doctors. However for proper  maintenance and management of the clinics and the patients, the doctors Invariabe need the services of a non-medical personnel. By the layman these non-medical personnel working in the clinics or nursing Homes are addressed as 'Compaunder Saheb' in case of males and 'sister', didiji Or 'Bhanji in case as females. The word Compaunder used for these personnel is literally incorrect because a Compaunder means a person who compaunds and dispenses medicines. Hense the term Basic Medical Assistant appears to be most appropriate for such helping personal. 
     
                     1.2 Duties and responsibilities of Basic Medical Assistants:

# Proper maintenance and upkeep of the clinics. #Patient reception. 
#Appointment control and scheduling patient’s         visit
#Patient's amenties management. 
#Maintaining patient's records
#Receiving and ansuring telephone calls. 
#Receiving and recording payments 
        

DUTIES INSIDE THE DOCTORS CHAMBERS. 

#Recording height of patient
#Recording weight of patient 
#preparing and positioning of the patient for examination by the doctor.
#If the doctor has to record the E. C. G of a patient, the basic Medical Assistant has to prepare the patient for E. C. G recording. (See unit 5). 
    #Explaining the doctor's prescription to the patient and his relatives. In addition to be above if the Basic Medical Assistant is working with doctors in their nursing homes he/she has to perform the following duties also:
#Recording of pulse rate, respiration rate, temperature and Blood pressure as per instructions of the doctor. 
#collection of samples for examination. 
#Adiministration of medicines. 
#proper nursing care of the patents. 

   However it must be remembered that through the above duties are defined, but the Basic Medical Assistant may be called upon to perform other duties also which may be assigned to them by the doctor from time to time.
        In smaller practice only one individual may have to handle all these duties, however depending upon the size of the practices, these roles may be performed by more than one individual. In that event one of them is assigned the supervisory function. 

  1.3. SPECIAL QUILITIES NEEDED IN A BASIC MEDICAL ASSISTANT:
      In addition to the basic knowledge and skill that the students will acquire on the completion of this course, as basic Medical assistant must also posses or develop the following quilities :
 #Be courteous and helpful to the patent
 #Be able to assume responsibility. 
 #possess a mastery over this skill and pay   close attention to detail. 
 #Organise work and be able to carry           through an assignment despite problems. 
 #Handle multiple task simultaneously. 
 #Possess the maturity to respond to patients   tactfully, even when they appear to be   unreasonable .
 #Respond calmly, quickly and appropriately   in emergency situation. 
 #must possess steam spirit, case there are   more than one individual working in the.   practice. 
                    Detail about the duties and responsibilities of Basic Medical assistants are given in the subsequent units of this paper and in paper III

      1.4 QUESTIONS FOR EXERCISE:
       
1. Describe briefly what you mean by Basic Medical Assistant. 
2.Enumerate the duties and responsibilities of Basic Medical assistant. 
3.Enumerate the qualities which a basic Medical Assistant must possess or develop