I am female and in my 60's. After an injury at work, it appears that I will not be able to return to my previous employment in the education sector due to the physicality of the work. I am considering retraining as a medical receptionist but was wondering how to go about doing this - do I enrol in a medical receptionist course and, if so, which one or do most people get training on the job. Are there job agencies that will help with this process?
Any assistance would be very much appreciated.
Options for Employment for Mature Female - Medical Receptionist?
Vinx on 02/03/2023 - 13:54
Comments
I am highly likely to be completely ignorant of the skill set required to be a medical receptionist, but I imagine most of it would be on-the-job training in specific processes and systems. Transferable skills might be PC skills, empathy, accuracy, attention to detail.
Society is trying to PUSH crappy 1 year long cert 3 and 4s onto everyone for every job. Anyone with an IQ above nothing and some genuine interest could on-the-job learn this in 2-4 weeks.
Are you on workcover?
Yeah mum did this. She did a vocational course.
my partner did this course:
https://www.northmetrotafe.wa.edu.au/courses/certificate-iii…
Cert III in Business, Medical Admin, and she is working as medical / aged care receptionist.
Other roles if finished the course would be:
Medical Receptionist | Admissions Clerk | Hospital Ward Clerk | Medical Admissions Clerk
Medical Records Officer | Medical Records Clerk
Medical Secretarymy 2c is not many job agencies, but look to be many state gov positions hospital, and aged care admin type positions.
Medical receptionists are usually very young women in my experience, it might be different in your city though. You've obviously got a lot of work experience and people skills, why not just apply everywhere and see what you can get?
Maybe you only notice the young ones. I can't remember the last time I saw a medical reception that looked younger than 40.
Yeah definitely most are 40+. Source: worked in IT for a large health organisation and have multiple family members who are med receptionists.
Ironically, I've found a lot of dental clinics have younger receptionists.
But as for medical centres or hospitals, reception staff are almost always over 40.
I was at a hospital last night. Receptionist at the front desk was over 50.
Maybe I'm just not good at telling women's ages. Or the situation in Adelaide might be different.
If you are in NSW, there is this course in Health Administration which is Online. It should be Fee Free. It can take up to 12 months to do. Give them a call or email, to see if this is the right course.
My partner worked as a medical receptionist. There were plenty of older people who worked alongside too. Did not require any qualifications. But without prior experience, maybe something would help along those lines.
School receptionist would seem like a much faster pivot?
This. School admin pays much better and if youre already in the public service, that service will carry across.
It’s hard for most offices to find receptionists, so you could just try that - doesn’t require much training. Or as a temp. Nowhere near as interesting as a medical receptionist though
Not sure what kind of education you were in but have you considered teaching online? Apparently there is a demand for this (which was accelerated due to the pandemic) of online tutoring and online English lessons (particularly for people who live overseas).