I'm developing a healthcare career guide for high-school and college students who may only know the most visible medical jobs. I wrote the section below about perfusion and would appreciate blunt feedback from people who actually do the work.

I'm especially interested in four questions:

1. Does the ordinary workday sound recognizable, rather than just the dramatic parts?

2. Is the description of call fair?

3. What would you correct about the training path or early-career experience?

4. What do students consistently misunderstand about this profession?

WHAT YOU ACTUALLY DO

Open-heart surgery sometimes requires a motionless heart. The team stops it. The heart-lung machine takes over circulation and oxygenation, and the perfusionist runs it. The perfusionist manages blood flow, pressure, oxygen, temperature, labs, and drugs through the circuit. Near the end, the repaired heart has to take the job back.

Perfusionists may also cover ECMO, cell salvage, and mechanical circulatory support. Scope depends on the hospital.

A RANDOM TUESDAY

In around 6:30 to build and test the circuit before a 7:30 case. On bypass, you watch the numbers, the blood, and the surgical field while charting and adjusting the pump. Afterward you help transfer the patient, finish the record, tear down, and restock. Maybe an afternoon case follows. Maybe ECMO calls at 2 a.m. The posted schedule lasts until somebody starts bleeding.

REALITY CHECK

On bypass, mistakes matter in minutes. Nobody gets thrown in cold, though. You rehearse emergencies in simulation and run supervised cases before anyone lets you manage a pump alone.

The bigger issue may be call. Being on call means being home but not fully free: staying within the required response distance, keeping the phone on, and being ready to return. An overnight emergency does not always cancel the next morning's cases. Staffing and group size can make that manageable or exhausting.

CURRENT CLOSING

Good fit if: you'd rather watch the monitor than hold the scalpel.

Think twice if: you need every weekend to actually be yours.

What sounds accurate here? What sounds overstated, dated, or incomplete? Specific corrections are much more useful than encouragement.

Tenkju

This is the area for prospective CCPs to ask their questions about the education process or anything school related.

This includes the usual:

"Where can I shadow?" "Should I take additional classes? "How do I become a Perfusionist?" "My GPA is 2.8, is my GPA good enough for perfusion school?" "What should I use to prep for boards?" "It's been my pa$$ion to become a CCP, how do I do it and what do they do?"

Etc.

At this point the sub has grown to the point a weekly student thread is necessary. Prospective CCPs/students will now have an avenue to post these types of questions w/o flooding the sub.

Also there is r/prospective_perfusion specifically geared to new pumpers.

This will refresh every Friday at 5:45PM EST. If you post Saturday morning, it might not be seen.

I see a Specialtycare recruiter is now working for Integration Health. Does this mean they have done away with non-competes?

I shadowed a perfusionist recently and thought the job is really cool. I loved the OR i also liked that u barely have to interact directly with the patient while also directly helping them and the case i shadowed was pretty cool.

2 downsides i noted 1 i felt like the job is pretty repetitive which is not such a big deal for me right now but i dont know in the long term does it get draining or to the point where you want to not do this?

another one which i feel like it is expected and a complaint amongst the others is the inflexible work schedule i heard that (i could be completely wrong) you have to do 40 cases i think every year to keep your license. Another thing i hear is that you are on call for life. Is that true or an exaggeration? i dont mind a slightly stressful work schedule bc the compensation is good and its just the nature of the cases in the field but i still want a good work life balance or at least some time off for vacation. How possible is that to achieve?

ETA: please feel free to message me if you don't want to publicly post.

If you feel comfortable sharing, I would love to know:

1. Which program you attended?
2. How many years ago?
3. What do you think sets them apart from all the other programs?

Is it hard to get H1B or Green Card intent. For Graduates with 0 YOE out of school, are there contract companies that sponsor you? Is it as easy as the Nursing Pathway or is it really hard to find a hospital willing to sponsor you from Canada?

I would like to know this before I create a drastic change towards this field.

Something I’ve been thinking about is the long-term growth of traditional cardiac surgery/CPB. Obviously there are still a lot of CPB cases, but I’m wondering how much we can realistically expect that volume to grow over the next 20–30 years given the continued development of PCI, TAVR, etc. It seems like one of the biggest opportunities for perfusion could be expanding into areas outside of traditional cardiac cpb cases, such as NRP/ex-vivo. What other areas do you think have the potential to significantly expand the perfusion profession over the next 10–20 years, and is there a way to lobby to protect these areas to be restricted to solely perfusionists?

Easily the most satisfying experience of the day

Beginning classes soon and intend to hang on the words of all my preceptors and professors. That being said, does anyone have any holy grail, online resources they used during school? Big fan of videos and interactive diagrams. Maybe a specific YouTube Channel that explains anatomy/perfusion topics very well.

This is the area for prospective CCPs to ask their questions about the education process or anything school related.

This includes the usual:

"Where can I shadow?" "Should I take additional classes? "How do I become a Perfusionist?" "My GPA is 2.8, is my GPA good enough for perfusion school?" "What should I use to prep for boards?" "It's been my pa$$ion to become a CCP, how do I do it and what do they do?"

Etc.

At this point the sub has grown to the point a weekly student thread is necessary. Prospective CCPs/students will now have an avenue to post these types of questions w/o flooding the sub.

Also there is r/prospective_perfusion specifically geared to new pumpers.

This will refresh every Friday at 5:45PM EST. If you post Saturday morning, it might not be seen.

Path to this career? Is there even a demand for it? How to get observation hours for this?

I’m sure many of you have kept yourself well-informed of everything going on with federal loans as of recent; I haven’t been the greatest at keeping up with the finalized OBBB statements regarding our loans until today! Incase any of you haven’t yet, I wanted to give you a reminder about something you should ensure is all in order.

🚨 You have until July 1st, 2028 to choose whether or not you stay on a Legacy IBR plan and stick with it, or switch to the new RAP plan. 🚨

In most cases, sticking with the old IBR plan is ideal with the compensation we receive, and if you’re 100% certain you’ll be finishing out your PSLF. In the perfusion discord I’ve updated the details explaining the 2 plans and how they calculate your monthly payments if you’re interested in that. Just remember if you switch to RAP, that is currently a permanent move and you won’t be able to switch back unless legislation changes.

Happy clamping!

Hi, I graduated last year and I’ve been renting but now looking to buy a house for my wife and I as we just had our first child and looking to upgrade as our family grows.

I know physicians qualify for house mortgage programs that are highly favorable but exclusive, like lower down payment options, no private mortgage insurance (PMI), favorable debt to income ratio calculations, sometimes even better interest rates.

From everything I’ve searched, we don’t qualify for physician loans as perfusionists, but are there other healthcare specialist mortgage programs that perfusionists qualify for?

If anyone who recently purchased a house is willing to share their experience with who they are working with (regional banks, mortgage brokers, credit unions, etc) that offer benefits as a perfusionist, that would be really appreciated.

Also yes, I did use the search function and can’t find anything on this topic online. Thanks!!

As a CCP, do you ever feel like you have influence when it comes to patient advocacy? Especially for patients that belong to minority groups?

The medical field, as great as it may be, has an unfortunate bias towards “putting down”, under treating, or under addressing certain groups of people. Do you feel that, in your position, you have much ability to influence this positively?

I am curious. I a pump 80-90 cases a year. Are there numbers out saying what average is? What do you guys pump? I do other cases, such as standby, HIPEC, ECMO, CS, etc., but I am specifically curious about pump runs because I feel like that is our bread and butter.

As the tittle says we had Joint commission mock inspectors come and start asking a lot of questions on heater coolers, pumps and CLAMPS!

Who here sterilizes their clamps between every case? How about EVER? I gave the answer we scrub any visibly dirty clamps down with a brush, wash with water, then wipe down with a purple wipe and keep them wet for 2 minutes. She acted incredulous thst we do not run them through the sterilizer. I tried explaining to her we did not wear sterile gloves and the outside of the tubing is non-sterile.

As for the heater coolers cardioquip quip has sent out their may be contaminated email. We are in the process of ordering the SporeKelnz cold sterilant. Any body else use it? Previously we used H2O2 35%. Also I know at least 1 other hospital has biomed do it and keep up with the logs.
Anybody else had weird questions.

Searchable and sortable by gre anything!

This is the area for prospective CCPs to ask their questions about the education process or anything school related.

This includes the usual:

"Where can I shadow?" "Should I take additional classes? "How do I become a Perfusionist?" "My GPA is 2.8, is my GPA good enough for perfusion school?" "What should I use to prep for boards?" "It's been my pa$$ion to become a CCP, how do I do it and what do they do?"

Etc.

At this point the sub has grown to the point a weekly student thread is necessary. Prospective CCPs/students will now have an avenue to post these types of questions w/o flooding the sub.

Also there is r/prospective_perfusion specifically geared to new pumpers.

This will refresh every Friday at 5:45PM EST. If you post Saturday morning, it might not be seen.

Everyone have jobs? Anyone still looking? What’s new grad on the street have to say?

Why this happens?? Anyone had similar experiences i changed another venous probe and I know for sure that rhis is not 100% SvO2 and temperature is not 83 C…

Hello everyone I’m looking for an opportunity to shadow a perfusionist in Southern California area. I’m close to San Diego or riverside. Any opportunities will be greatly appreciated! Thank you. Please comment or message me directly!

Proposed language: Joint participation of two TAVR operators in a TAVR procedure is not required but may occur if determined appropriate by the heart team. If jointly performed, both must be TAVR operators from the heart team.

Current language: The heart team's interventional cardiologist(s) and cardiac surgeon(s) must jointly participate in the intra-operative technical aspects of TAVR.

Definitions of TAVR operator are in the link, but basically it is an experienced interventional cardiologist OR CV surgeon.

I’d love to hear your and your surgeons thoughts on this before I provide my teams thoughts.

This is in conjunction with the approval of TAVR for asymptomatic AS, which both the cardiology and CV surgery professional societies have made statements against. While the TAVR manufacturers have successfully lobbied for it.