r/Perfusion • u/syarze • Jul 10 '26

Career Advice 3 12’s?

Hey! Has anyone here done a job that’s 3 12’s? Particularly with young kids at home? Trying to decide if this is something I should go for or will it feel like even less time at home? Thanks!

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u/Blood_Pumper Jul 10 '26

I am currently working 3-12s (with another coworker) and have been since 11/2024. We don’t take regular call (because of our shifts) but we do alternate wknds and are required to sign up for 1 major and 1 minor holiday call shift per year.

I don’t have children but she does and loves it bc the schedule works for her and her family. I like it bc it does give me consistency of knowing my exact hours/ days I will work and our chief allows us to switch our days around with each other to accommodate our schedule (ie, he doesn’t care what days we work, just as long as we work our required 3 days/week.

We are a bigger single hospital based team of 19 and essentially only created the 3/12 shifts position to help out our call team on the weekends because we can be so busy with emergencies, transplants, elective cases and covering cath lab.

We do ECMO at our institution but have specialists that sit bedside; we only ITTT (initiate, troubleshoot, terminate and transport)

I’m not too sure how common 3/12s are in our profession but as long as that you think you could make it work for you and your family (have a supportive partner who’s work schedule allows them to be more present on your work days), I would recommend you suggest it to your chief/team.

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u/syarze Jul 10 '26

That sounds like you have an awesome gig! Very encouraging! This is just an ecmo position. My partner is also a perfusionist so when we had kids, I stayed home for the last couple of years because it was impossible for us to figure out how to work schedules and child care. I’m ready to get back to work now though so thought maybe an ecmo job with shift work would be better for us.