I am in the first semester of nursing school and have heard that MAs do alot of what the LVNs do and the big difference is that the LVNs are licensed and i guess semi-protected and MAs are not so much? Can someone please clarify for me. I am taking MA classes right now to start my nursing career, but ultimately i would like to get my Bachelor's for RN. Any nursing advice of ANY kind is greatly appreciated!! :) Thank you all and have a great hump day! :-)

Great explanation..Teresa

I am a little late coming to this topic, however I will comment anyway =). I am days away from graduating my Medical Assistant program. My ultimate goal is Nurse Practitioner in Cardiac Surgery, (masters) however you cannot go to nursing school without being in the field. So what I did was spent 3 months making phone calls, writing emails and letters, and talking to physicians, physicians assistants, and nurses in both hospitals and private practices. I wanted to know if the extra few months of school required for an LPN degree was worth the extra money and time as well as travel to get to a school that offered it due to the lack of availability in my area. What I was told by more than 90% of those I spoke to was that LPN's are being phased out in many states. The MA (at least in WA) is trained and able to do EVERYTHIING an LPN can do, can work in all clinics, hospitals, and offices and pay is usually only less if it is in a state ran setting. The MA program (from what was explained to me) was originally designed to bridge the gap between a clinical assistant, which is an on the job trained MA without certification, basically one step up from CNA) and the RN. MA's can be both state and nationally certifed, are required to take more CEU's than LPN's in a 5 yr period, and can also graduate with the phlebotomy certification (currently that's not available for the LPN programs around here) allowing us to sit for the state exam in that as well.  Most MA programs are taught by RN's or SCMA's with several years of experience at least in my area. The biggest thing I heard was that an LPN can carry insurance on their license, however an MA has to work under the insurance of the Dr., clinic, or hospital they work at. But, I was told that in most cases the clinic still has to carry insurance on the LPN anyways so that is really not of any benefit from the employers side. Believe me, I am not knocking LPN's by no means. I have high respect for anyone in the medical field which is why I chose it as a profession. I am simply sharing what I found when researching where I needed to start. On another positive note, I was hired at a Cardiac Clinic making more than the average family practice RN So there are good jobs out there no matter what you start out as!! Good luck =)