(ARA) – Now that the kids are back in school, are you considering going back to college yourself? If so, you owe it to yourself to consider a career as a medical assistant. Medical assisting is one of the fastest growing jobs for women in 2010, according to Forbes Magazine.

Although you might not be familiar with the title “medical assistant,” you’ve certainly encountered them in your doctor’s office or medical clinic. Medical assistants perform both clinical and administrative tasks, such as charting a patient’s medical history, scheduling appointments, and recording height, weight, temperature and blood pressure information. They work in a wide range of medical and health facilities, including physician’s offices and clinics.

Forbes Magazine lists it as a top career for women because approximately 90 percent of medical assistants are women. The career offers substantial flexibility in scheduling and has relatively low entrance requirements. This makes it perfectly suited for women interested in entering the labor market after a hiatus or those making a career switch.

Women considering a medical assistant degree, should look for a college like Everest that offers flexible scheduling that helps them balance their studies, work and family time, advises Lani Townsend, campus president at Everest College in Reseda, Calif., the nationwide leader in training medical assistants.

“At Everest, our students can earn a medical assistant diploma in as little as eight months, which makes it perfectly designed for students who have to balance parenting and studying,” says Townsend.

In addition, medical assisting offers a substantial degree of security, an important consideration in this economy. Medical assisting is among the fastest growing careers in the U.S. In fact, the Department of Labor reports that the need for medical assistants is expected to grow 34 percent between 2008 and 2018, which is much greater than average job growth. Moreover, medical assistants find employment in a wide range of medical facilities, and often find medical assisting a great place to start their career in the allied health sector, as it can often lead to other careers in health care.

“Hands-on training and education in pharmacology, laboratory procedure, medical law, patient care and the health sciences make students capable of filling a diverse range of duties in a health care facility,” says Delisa Griffin, a medical assistant instructor at Everest Institute in Kendall, Fla.

However, Griffin recommends that whichever program you attend, you make sure to pursue formal certification as a registered medical assistant (RMA) through the Association of Medical Technologists (AMT) or a certified medical assistant (CMA) through the American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA). Although getting formal certification is often not necessary to enter the field, the U.S. Department of Labor recommends both formal coursework and certification, as employers prefer to hire certified workers. Certification will make you more competitive for top positions and will offer greater security in the labor market.

“You want to be sure that a medical assistant program can help you obtain the certification you need to make you more competitive in the job market,” says Griffin. “At Everest, all of our medical assistant programs prepare students to take the certification exam to become RMAs. And, depending on the location, many of our campuses prepare students to take the certification exam to become CMAs.”