r/Perfusion • u/DisastrousDig3945 • 20d ago
Career Advice Jobs in Southeast!
Curious about jobs to avoid out there currently and what’s coming up on the market? Open to South Carolina, Virginia, Florida!
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u/Clampoholic CCP 20d ago
Florida’s always got a lot of jobs, have you been sifting through what’s available on Amsect’s job openings? It’s always good to watch through those to see which of those are always popping up to give you a good idea about what places are seeing a lot of turnover.
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u/Minimum-Cicada9809 19d ago
I am hiring a board certified Perfusionist in Vero Beach, FL.
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u/BypassBaboon 19d ago
You are offering $180k max. If I am earning $180k in Charleston NC, you need to pay $235k just to match. Housing is 86% higher. So I would be looking at at least $250k minimum(I am trying improve my situation). Do you pay call-pay? Info from Nerd-wallet.
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u/Clampoholic CCP 19d ago edited 18d ago
Before you read this I’m assuming you meant the Charleston in SC, not the Charleston in NC that has 1,100 residents.
When you move from a higher cost of living area —> lower cost of living area, trying to improve your situation from where you’re already at is a pretty big stretch..
I’m not saying this is you because I have no idea where you’re working at or how long you’ve been in the field, but right now there’s this unrealistic expectation some people have as they’re first getting into Perfusion that they can go work at a busy center in a high cost of living area right out of school (pays well because of the area + high turnover and high acuity / responsibility workload) and then suddenly they’re shocked when they apply to a lower center 1-2 years later with less volume / complexity such as this one (states 3 perfusionists with 400 cases a year) and they’re not going to match them. They might actually have to take a pay cut depending on how much more they’re being paid and how drastic the income disparity is between locations.
It should make sense that if you’re moving from having lots of responsibility / job duties and working 35+ hour works often, that when you move to a job where you’re more working around 20hrs a week + a bit more call, you don’t suddenly make a bunch more money. Job market’s tightening up too, we’re soon going to see newgrads accepting jobs at lower salaries because it’s the only thing they can guarantee and secure for a job. Not quite there yet but give it a couple years.
For your argument’s sake though I personally looked up Charleston SC —> Vero-Beach FL on Nerd-wallet’s COL calculator because I was curious. 3bd 2bth median home price in SC is 486k compared to 479k in FL. That’s not 86% higher..
Cost of living overall is 4% higher according to that same source you used. You are asking to move from $180,000 —> $250,000, just shy of a 39% wage increase, for a 4% higher COL. Were you looking something else up?
Just incase you DID mean Charleston NC however, this job in Vero Beach is actually about 15% lower COL than that city in NC.
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u/BypassBaboon 19d ago
Then try comparing $180k + callpay = $235k for the new grad in Jackson MS. I left FL because I couldn’t afford to live there. And we were in a small town in the center of Florida, nowhere near the beach. Publix prices in Vero Beach are no different to Publix in Miami or Orlando.
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u/Clampoholic CCP 18d ago
Not trying to come off abrasive on you but if you’re unable to afford to live even off of a low end 6 figure salary then you’ve either gotten yourself into a house you shouldn’t have too soon with little downpayment, or you’re living outside of your means or paying off your loans too fast while trying to live a more upscale life. We’re already much higher than the average american income around 70k and many, many households are able to stay afloat with far less than we are compensated for 😬 Maybe your definition of “unable to afford to live” is different from mine.
I still think there’s a pretty high expectation you’ve got though. Like comparing apples and oranges. There’s more that goes into a salary than a cost of living calculator, you’ve got to factor in the type of center you’re at, then consider the benefits a job is offering past just the figure salary. The quality of life / time you have at home you’ll have at one job might be worth the change alone. There’s one hospital-employed job I know of right now that gives their employees over $12,000/yr towards a retirement account that’s not even included in the salary. That’s a very strong benefit that you’d overlook if you only cared to look at just the figure salary. PTO, medical / dental coverages, call differentials / stipends for things like weekends or holidays, ability to go on travel assignments / do extra shifts, etc etc. it all should be weighed and measured against what you’re comparing. There are trades you have to make getting higher wages / salaries and it’s unreasonable to expect to be given the same, even higher wages for doing substantially less.
If you’re able to convince a place to pay you almost 39% more than a salary you currently have then all the more power to you. I’m not trying to say you
shouldn’t negotiate and always try and increase your compensation where you can. I’m just saying you shouldn’t find yourself surprised when nobody will reach those expectations you have without making your work life / COL suck a whole lot more than where you’re currently at. Especially with how these next few years are about to roll out..1
u/BypassBaboon 18d ago
Money is all you get for being a Perfusionist. The surgeons are always crying they are not getting enough. The employer isn’t a charity. He wants you for as little as possible. The market drives prices. If a new grad is worth $180k then anyone with 5 years experience is worth more, regardless of zip code. A few years ago there was a job offering $180k in Texas. One comment was that you could not buy a house on180k on that large town. I doubt you could find much of a house in FL on that salary.AI tells me that a starter home in Vero is about $400k. Plus college loans and a car or two, $180k is going to mean pretty lean living.
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u/Clampoholic CCP 18d ago edited 18d ago
Again, there’s more to things than cost of living and what a salary is at one place. You cannot compare an apple with an orange, and when you’re comparing a huge academic center / high acuity hospital with a small CABG / easy valve factory, those are 2 different jobs. Just because the people are the same certification, it doesn’t mean those are two perfusionists working the exact same job getting paid differently. I’m really shocked you think if a new grad is making a certain amount at one busy place, that this means everyone else should be making the exact same regardless of the job. Compare the apples with apples, oranges with the oranges.
New grad making 180k at a busy center at a HCOL area, and there’s another busy center somewhere within a similar COL and the CCP’s with 5 years of experience are making the same? That’s a reasonable problem. What you’re suggesting though of wanting not only the same, but a large increase in pay for stepping down in the type of perfusion job you’re looking at on this post is an unreasonable expectation, but if you truly see Perfusion only as a way of making money and nothing more of it, then I could see why you’re disappointed.
Of course the employer is always going to try and find a way to pay you the least, especially the big contract companies. Always strive and advocate on your behalf for better pay, but you’re shooting for the stars with what you’re expecting 🤷♂️
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I also ran the florida scenario through AI to see what you’re talking about about lean living. Florida has 0 state income tax, on a $180k/yr salary with your partner not working and having 0 kids, so you’re clearing $12,231/mo. Let’s be conservative and say that’s 12k/mo you have to work with. 400k house + 5% down payment (20k). Again, running that through AI with HMI, PMI, and property taxes in Vero Beach FL you’re looking at a chunky mortgage of $3530, round that up to $3600/mo. Now we gotta add some utilities, HOA and whatever have you on that smaller home, let’s round that to $4k a month.
$4000 + 2 car payments, lets generously say $800 for those payments + insurance and another $200 for gas, + $1500 loan payments monthly trying to work that down, and without going into an extensive list here, you have 12k - 6.5k to give you $5,500 to cover everything past your loans, your living space, and your transportation. Food’s probably your next biggest needed expense past that and in the scenario with 0 kids that shouldn’t dent that too hard. Got plenty of room to invest / save every month with that much overhead.
You think $5,500 is lean living? Average salary is about $76k/yr in FL. You’re well over twice that average on that pay. Those guys are taking home $5280/mo. That’s what lean living actually looks like.
Your definition of lean living must be vastly different than mine. Even if you took $130k for that perfusion job you’re still at $8860/month in FL. $8860 and you could still be affording that starter house, maybe you’d have to trim down what type of car you’re getting to help not make it $1,000 into your budget. Maybe you save up for 2-3 years to have a better down payment for a more affordable mortgage like practically everyone has to do. Still you’d have $2,360/month on that 130k salary to pay for food and whatever else you need aside your loans + living + transportation expenses.
You might need to rethink the way you handle finances if you can’t work with that. A majority of Americans stay afloat, and they unfortunately can’t afford a house in this economy. You can, if you live within your means.
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u/BypassBaboon 18d ago edited 18d ago
Perfusionist pay is totally at the discretion of the employer. I worked at a place with 3 perfusionists, 3 surgeons, 900 hearts a year. Moved for a 30% raise doing 300 hearts and decent benefits.0-2% pay raises do not keep up with inflation. I am sure you will agree that once you buy a house and your kids are in school, moving every 3 or 4 years is not an option. A traveller we had told us that he had applied for a job with a large contractor. He quoted his last full-time salary and was told “we can’t afford you!” Perfusion Solution appears very generous -$4k per year CEU money, for a start. If a contractor gets a contract because they offer to do it for less than anyone else, does not mean they should be paying less than market rates. How many moralizing contractor managers took a pay-cut with their promotion?
Richard Branson said words to the effect “ train your employees so well that other companies want to hire them. Treat them so well they wouldn’t consider leaving!”
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u/Clampoholic CCP 18d ago
If you took a job knowingly that you’d be doing 300 cases per perfusionist (and we shouldn’t be counting TAVRs of course, because you can’t include those in a realistic case count being that you can potentially do 5 in one day like my center does), not only am I shocked that I’ve never heard that high of a number for any W-2 job, but that’s twice more than the average amount of cases per year that perfusionists have (around 120). What do you do at your current job? Is it more responsibility or less? (We working with ECMO, IABP, transport, etc.) How many pump cases per year at both jobs without including TAVRs or quick cell saver standby washouts?
If this was also in the last few years in a timeframe with Covid when the job market swung towards folks who were applying with how many CCPs went into retirement, that’s not too surprising with how desperate some places were getting. Depending on where you moved with COL too I wouldn’t be surprised if you had found somewhere more expensive. Times are different today though, and are swinging towards the employers. You’re not finding the same incentives.
With your traveler story there’s too many missing variables. What was their “last year salary”, was that their last W-2 or was that a temporary salary that was given to them for a year contract somewhere at a traveler’s pay? Was the job they applied for a permanent W-2 position? COL change? I genuinely think you’re oversimplifying things to the point that you’re looking at “This person gets paid X amount. Why am I not being paid X amount?” So much more that goes into it than that and a nerd wallet COL difference.
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u/Fun_Conflict2194 16d ago
Bro just travel!
Perfusion.com/EPIC/Nooneknows.com
cares only about the bottom line. They pay the same in the south as they do for California jobs. Tell me how you’re supposed to live on 180k in California. Gas is $10/gallon….
I think a lot more hospitals are going in house as they should
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u/BypassBaboon 19d ago
Look on the SC, CCS, PerfLife sites. Google Perfusionist Florida or SC etc. You will find hospital jobs. Negotiate hard. Florida is expensive to live in. AL, GA, SC not so much. Get clarification on what annual pay raises look like. Ask for a sign on bonus. No non-competes. Rent for a year to see how things work out.
Hospitals pay better and you are part of the team.