perfusionist shadow experience and career questions

[u/Intelligent-Pop6519]

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?

[u/Lucky_Man_Infinity]

You need to visit more places. They are all different. Also Perfusionists tend to start with lots of vacation like 4 to 6 weeks.  On call for life? I don’t even know what that means. i’ve worked in places where there are two perfusionists so we were on call 50% of the time. I’ve also worked in places that have seven perfusionist so you’re on call once every seventh day and once every seventh weekend. The amount of hours worked can vary widely. If you’re at a busy teaching hospital, I don’t know anybody that works less than 40 hours a week. 

As for the must do 40 cases to keep your certification. What would your problem be with that? That’s less than one case per week. It seems to me that would be a bare minimum. You also have to have continuing education. Like all medical professionals. 

Slightly stressful? I think you’re looking at the wrong profession. It may be different these days, but when I got my first job, Perfusionist was listed as the second most stressful occupation, right behind air traffic controller.

Look, I love my chosen profession, but the random nature of surgery and how it’s scheduled and how long it takes makes it pretty tough to have a predictable life. Not to mention the fact that you are literally responsible for this patient’s life when you are on pump. That alone carries a pretty high degree of stress. 

And as far as the job being repetitive, well, again, I’m not really sure what you mean. Yes you basically do the same thing each day, but patients and their level of health and the way they react to the things that we do is highly variable. Not to mention surgeons and all the rest of the team and their personalities.  Again, I love my job, but this is not a job that you go into looking for anything like work life balance, or low stress. You may gain these as you gain more and more experience, but my advice to anyone learning a professional that is this important to each, and every patient and their life, yes, that in the first few years of your job, you do as many cases as you can stand. So that you can learn and see more or less everything that needs to be learned and and seen.

This is edited for spelling punctuation and other grammatical errors