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Clinical assistant education requirements

Updated January 8, 2025
2 min read
Usually, clinical assistants don't need a college education. The most common degree for clinical assistants is bachelor's degree with 49% graduates, with only 19% clinical assistant graduates earning associate degree. Clinical assistants who decided to graduate from college often finish University of Phoenix or Austin Community College. Some good skills to have in this position include patients, customer service and pet.

Popular clinical assistant certifications include Medical Assistant, Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA), or Certified Phlebotomy Technician (CPT). To improve clinical assistant qualification and skills, we prepared some online courses to help in clinical assistant education paths.

What education do you need to become a clinical assistant?

What degree do you need to be a clinical assistant?

The most common degree for clinical assistants is bachelor's degree, with 49% of clinical assistants earning that degree. The second and third most common degree levels are associate degree degree at 19% and associate degree degree at 8%.
  • Bachelor's, 49%
  • Associate, 19%
  • High School Diploma, 8%
  • Diploma, 7%
  • Other Degrees, 17%

What should I major in to become a clinical assistant?

You should major in psychology to become a clinical assistant. 16% of clinical assistants major in psychology. Other common majors for a clinical assistant include nursing and medical assisting services.

Best majors for clinical assistants

RankMajorPercentages
1Psychology16.0%
2Nursing14.8%
3Medical Assisting Services12.8%
4Business8.6%
5Biology8.4%

20 best online courses for clinical assistants

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1. Clinical Kidney, Pancreas and Islet Transplantation

coursera

Kidney transplantation is a major advance of modern medicine which provides high-quality of life for patients with end-stage renal disease. What used to be an experimental, risky, and very limited treatment option more than 50 years ago is now routinely performed in many countries worldwide. The number of renal transplants is expected to rise sharply in the next decade since the proportion of patients with end stage renal disease is increasing. Are you interested in clinical kidney, pancreas...

2. Clinical Trials Data Management and Quality Assurance

coursera

In this course, you’ll learn to collect and care for the data gathered during your trial and how to prevent mistakes and errors through quality assurance practices. Clinical trials generate an enormous amount of data, so you and your team must plan carefully by choosing the right collection instruments, systems, and measures to protect the integrity of your trial data. You’ll learn how to assemble, clean, and de-identify your datasets. Finally, you’ll learn to find and correct deficiencies...

3. Basic of Clinical Data Management

udemy
4.5
(341)

Clinical Data Management...

4. The Simplest Guide to Clinical Trials Data Analysis with SAS

udemy
4.4
(1,044)

Step into the world of Pharmaceutical industry Clinical Trials Clinical Research Biostatistics Clinical SAS SAS...

5. Clinical Trials Analysis, Monitoring, and Presentation

coursera

In this course, you’ll learn more advanced operational skills that you and your team need to run a successful clinical trial. You’ll learn about the computation of sample size and how to develop a sample size calculation that’s suitable for your trial design and outcome measures. You’ll also learn to use statistical methods to monitor your trial for safety, integrity, and efficacy. Next, you’ll learn how to report the results from your clinical trials through both journal articles and data...

6. Introduction to Clinical Data Science

coursera

This course will prepare you to complete all parts of the Clinical Data Science Specialization. In this course you will learn how clinical data are generated, the format of these data, and the ethical and legal restrictions on these data. You will also learn enough SQL and R programming skills to be able to complete the entire Specialization - even if you are a beginner programmer. While you are taking this course you will have access to an actual clinical data set and a free, online...

7. Good Clinical Practice ICH GCP for Clinical Research

udemy
4.5
(710)

Certification on ICH GCP E6 R2 Good Clinical Practice for Clinical Research The Only Complete Course You Can Find Online...

8. The Beginners Course for Clinical Research

udemy
4.5
(650)

The Essentials of Clinical Trials - Clinical Research for Beginners...

9. Design and Conduct of Clinical Trials

coursera

In this course, you’ll learn how to design and carry out clinical trials. Each design choice has implications for the quality and validity of your results. This course provides you and your team with essential skills to evaluate options, make good design choices, and implement them within your trial. You’ll learn to control for bias, randomize participants, mask treatments and outcomes, identify errors, develop and test hypotheses, and define appropriate outcomes. Finally, a trial without...

10. Predictive Modeling and Transforming Clinical Practice

coursera

This course teaches you the fundamentals of transforming clinical practice using predictive models. This course examines specific challenges and methods of clinical implementation, that clinical data scientists must be aware of when developing their predictive models...

11. Good Clinical Practice for Clinical Research Professionals

udemy
4.5
(537)

The Complete, Certified ICH GCP (R2 & R3) Course for Investigators, Study Coordinators, Sponsors, Monitors and Study staff...

12. Certificate Course in Clinical Research (CCCR)

udemy
4
(302)

A Clinical Research Course-ICH-GCP E6(R2), Clinical Trials, Essential Documents, Sponsor, Investigator, Pharmaceuticals...

13. Making Data Science Work for Clinical Reporting

coursera

This course is aimed to demonstate how principles and methods from data science can be applied in clinical reporting. By the end of the course, learners will understand what requirements there are in reporting clinical trials, and how they impact on how data science is used. The learner will see how they can work efficiently and effectively while still ensuring that they meet the needed standards...

14. Clinical Natural Language Processing

coursera

This course teaches you the fundamentals of clinical natural language processing (NLP). In this course you will learn the basic linguistic principals underlying NLP, as well as how to write regular expressions and handle text data in R. You will also learn practical techniques for text processing to be able to extract information from clinical notes. Finally, you will have a chance to put your skills to the test with a real-world practical application where you develop text processing...

15. Good Clinical Practice (GCP)

udemy
4.2
(313)

Key features of the GCP guideline, roles and responsibilities involved and the requirements of essential documentation...

16. Clinical Research for beginners

udemy
4.2
(462)

The Art of Publishing - Master Pub Med, Study design, Biostatistics, Journal choice, Manuscript writing & Referencing...

17. Addiction Treatment: Clinical Skills for Healthcare Providers

coursera

This course is designed with a singular goal: to improve the care you provide to your patients with substance use disorders. By delving into a model case performed by actors, seven Yale instructors from various fields provide techniques to screen your patients for substance use disorder risk, diagnose patients to gauge the severity of their use, directly manage treatment plans, refer out to treatment services, and navigate the various conditions that may limit your patient’s access to treatment...

18. HI-FIVE: Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment (Clinical Perspective)

coursera

HI-FIVE (Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment) Training is a 12-hour online course designed by Columbia University in 2016, with sponsorship from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). The training is role-based and uses case scenarios. Also, it has additional, optional modules on other topics of interest or relevance. Although we suggest to complete the course within a month's timeframe, the course is self-paced and so you can start and...

19. Abnormal Behavior & Clinical Psychology (Certificate)

udemy
4.4
(383)

Guiding students into the field of mental health services for either personal and/or professional development...

20. Understanding Clinical Research: Behind the Statistics

coursera

If you’ve ever skipped over the results section of a medical paper because terms like “confidence interval” or “p-value” go over your head, then you’re in the right place. You may be a clinical practitioner reading research articles to keep up-to-date with developments in your field or a medical student wondering how to approach your own research. Greater confidence in understanding statistical analysis and the results can benefit both working professionals and those undertaking research...

Average clinical assistant salary by education level

According to our data, clinical assistants with a Master's degree earn the highest average salary, at $46,132 annually. Clinical assistants with a Bachelor's degree earn an average annual salary of $35,675.
Clinical assistant education levelClinical assistant salary
Master's Degree$46,132
High School Diploma or Less$33,588
Bachelor's Degree$35,675
Some College/ Associate Degree$35,189

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

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